The Nashville Predators will look to establish more consistency when they visit the Dallas Stars on Wednesday.
The Predators entered the All-Star break on a 4-0-1 run after going 0-3-1 in their previous four games. They’ve scored at least four goals in each of their past four wins.
“The group, they really like each other and they believe in how hard they’re working for each other,” Predators coach John Hynes said. “I really like the energy and the mindset. We talked with our guys that our job right now is we have to recapture the game that gives us the best chance to win consistently and makes us a hard team to play against. And that’s what our focus is.”
One of the keys to the Predators’ success has been the play of forward Filip Forsberg. The Swede, who has five goals in his past four games, leads the team with 24 goals this season and is on pace for career highs in both goals and points.
“He’s been playing great, scoring a lot goals,” defenseman Mattias Ekholm said of Forsberg. “He was out for a bit and then got back and just started firing right away, and that builds confidence. … He’s feeling good about himself, he’s got great confidence and you can see it in him. He’s starting to shoot from everywhere. … It’s just great to see him play to the capability that we know he can.”
Wednesday’s contest is the first of a light month for the Predators, who will play four games in the next 10 days, with two days between each game before getting back to an every-other-day schedule for three games in the last week of February.
“Just try to enjoy February as much as we can,” Ekholm said. “You know you’re going to be pretty fresh coming into every game but come March and April, it’s back to normal and a lot of games in a short period of time.”
The Stars are hoping a successful stretch leading into the All-Star break can spur them up the standings in the second half of the season.
Dallas won five of seven games heading into the pause but still remains on the outside looking in at the playoff picture.
“Listen, we’re disappointed where we are, there’s no question, but that doesn’t mean we can’t or won’t turn it around in the second half,” Stars coach Rick Bowness said. “We’re knocking on the door of a playoff spot. It’s up to us to push forward. … No one wants to be where we are but we put ourselves here and now it’s going to be up to us to get ourselves back into it.”
The Stars have enjoyed several fruitful winning streaks since late November, including seven straight wins from Nov. 20-Dec. 6. But they’ve also let losing streaks stretch and haven’t managed to get any loser points, with each of their 11 losses since Dec. 8 coming in regulation.
“Consistency, a solid 60-minute effort,” Stars captain Jamie Benn said. “We definitely can’t beat ourselves. There’s a few keys we’re going to try to focus on to make our team better and give us the best chance to win, and if we do that on a nightly basis, we give ourselves a pretty good chance to win.”
–Field Level Media
