NHL Pick: Nashville Predators at Colorado Avalanche

Overview

The Nashville Predators are in Colorado tonight where they take on division rivals the Colorado Avalanche. The Avalanche have played the Predators fairly well over the past few seasons winning 8 of the last 5 meetings overall and 5 of the last 7 played in Colorado.

Head to Head Trends

Home team is 4-1 in the last 5 meetings.
Predators are 2-5 in the last 7 meetings in Colorado.

Colorado Avalanche (+110)

The Colorado Avalanche are 6th in the Central Division with 43 points 19 points back of the 1st place Dallas Stars. The Avalanche got off to a slow start this season winning just 4 of their first 14 games but they have turned things around and have been playing much better of late winning 11 of their last 17 games.

I like the Avalanches offense they have some really good young talent with guys like Matt Duchene, Nathan MacKinnon, and Gabriel Landeskog who have combined for 42 goals and 97 points so far this season. The one spot that the Avalanche do struggle a bit is on defense allowing 31.2 shots and 2.78 goals per game.

Colorado Avalanche Trends

Avalanche are 23-11 in their last 34 Friday games.
Avalanche are 8-3 in their last 11 vs. Western Conference.

The Nashville Predators are 5th in the Central Division with 45 points 17 points out of 1st place. I really liked the Predators early in the season they looked like they were going to be a good strong defensive team but they have just been getting steadily worse as the season has gone on.

One of the Predators main problems this season has been they don’t have much offensive talent up front most of their offensive production comes from the blue line and that just hasn’t been good enough to get the job done. The Predators recently traded away one of their good young defensemen to the Blue Jackets for center Ryan Johansen in the hopes for some more offensive production down low so we’ll see if that’s enough to turn around this team.

Nashville Predators Trends

Predators are 1-4 in their last 5 road games.
Predators are 1-6 in their last 7 vs. Western Conference.

Conclusion

I’m going with the Colorado Avalanche over the Predators in this one. The Predators haven’t really done anything on the road this season so I see no reason for them to start now and Avalanche have also been playing some pretty solid hockey of late.