Nashville played one of their best games of the entire season, doing exactly what I thought they needed to in order to dominate the Blackhawks. The Preds produced an incredible forechecking effort, frustrated the Hawks in the neutral zone and at the blue line with consistently fluid coverage, and overall had a fantastic effort on defense. Nashville’s previously lethargic and stale offensive philosophy has gotten a jolt lately, a trend that continued with some more creative goals from the slot by Ryan Johansen, Rocco Grimaldi, and Mikael Granlund.
Nashville even kept up with Chicago while playing a bit more run-and-gun hockey in the later parts of the second period, although that style ended up yielding a goal against courtesy of Pius Suter.