They did it without Jonathan Marchessault again. The injury report had pointed to Tuesday for his return, but he was listed out by game time, so the projected lines that left him off turned out to be right. Over the past 2 weeks Nashville has kept proving it can win without him. Coming into the night, the open question was whether the Predators' depth could hold on a cross-country trip after a November 7 home game against St. Louis. It held.
Los Angeles is the bigger story, and it's not a good one for the Kings. The preview's best argument for them was that the offense had finally woken up: 6 against the Rangers, 6 against Ottawa, 7 against San Jose on November 4. Then they sat for nearly a week, and the rest that was supposed to help them didn't. With Kevin Fiala still on injured reserve, the Kings went 3 periods at home without a goal. That looked a lot more like their October than like the run that came after it.
The line score shows how steady this was. Nashville scored 1, 1 and 1, which means a 1-goal lead after the 1st, a 2-goal lead after the 2nd, and a 3rd period that never gave Los Angeles a real opening. The search for the full box score didn't turn up a reliable scoresheet, so the Predators' goal scorers, including whether Steven Stamkos added to his 10 goals, and the saves behind the shutout aren't confirmed here. The shape of the game is clear anyway. Nashville kept its lead the whole night and kept adding to it, and the Kings never pulled closer than 1 goal.
In the first 4 wins of this streak, Nashville gave up 4 to Tampa Bay, 1 to Carolina, 2 at Colorado and 1 to St. Louis. Holding the Kings to nothing caps a 5-game run in which the Predators have beaten an Eastern contender, won in overtime at Colorado and taken a 3-0 regulation game on the road. Earlier in the season they kept letting games slip past regulation. Lately they've been the team ending games early.
For Los Angeles, the trend the preview flagged keeps going. This is a team learning to play without Anze Kopitar under a new coach in Peter Laviolette, and it has now been shut out on home ice by a team that had played 3 days earlier. The offense from earlier in November is still in there somewhere, but it needs Fiala back, and the November 14 target can't come soon enough. Nashville flies home on 5 straight wins and still hasn't had Marchessault back.
