Nashville (3-3) at Anaheim (3-3)
When: Wednesday, April 27th 2016
Where: Honda Center, Anaheim, CA
Time: 10:05 ET | TV: NBC Sports
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The Anaheim Ducks will try and avoid losing another Game 7 when they host the Nashville Predators on Wednesday in the winner-take-all game. The Ducks have been eliminated from the playoffs three straight year via a Game 7 home loss. They had a chance to close out the series in Nashville on Monday, but fell 3-1 to the Predators. Corey Perry led Anaheim by a wide margin with 34 goals in the regular season – the sixth time in the past eight seasons he has scored at least 30 times – but he has yet to get one pass Pekka Rinne in this series, although he does have four assists. Perry’s frustration reached its peak with just over 6:30 remaining in the third period of Game 6 as he took a pass all alone in the slot, only to have his point-blank tying attempt swallowed up by Rinne. The Ducks will need the continued production of Ryan Kesler, who has scored in back-to-back games and has three goals in the series.
The Predators will be playing in their first Game 7 in franchise history on Wednesday. They took the first two games of the series in Anaheim, but then lost the last three until Rinne came up huge in Game 6. He surrendered 11 goals in Games 3 through 5, but made 27 saves in Game 6 including the game-saver on Perry late in the third. Forward James Neal had been held off the scoresheet since Game 1, but scored on goal and set up another on Monday. The Nashville power-play will need to do a better job when on the man-advantage. They are 1-for-23 in the series after failing to score in their only attempt on Monday. The winner of this game will take on the San Jose Sharks in round 2.
History is not on the Ducks side, but it wasn’t on the St. Louis Blues side the other night either and look what they did. The Predators had no trouble winning the first two at Honda Center and I think they have the momentum and less pressure to win this one. Rinne comes up big again.
Pick: Predators +146
