NHL Playoffs 2012: 4 Players Who Must Step Up for the Predators in Game 2

The Nashville Predators made deleting one-goal deficits their Friday forte in Game 1 of the Western Conference semifinals versus the Phoenix Coyotes.

The trouble was, when a deficit is spawned during overtime, it instantaneously freezes. The Preds relearned that lesson when, after trailing 1-0, 2-1 and 3-2, they could not kick the habit and ultimately dropped a 4-3 sudden-death decision.

So here’s a novel idea for Barry Trotz’s pupils entering Sunday night’s Game 2 at Jobing.com Arena: How about scoring first and seeing how a lead works for them?

During the regular season, only the Boston Bruins (31-5-0) had a better record than Nashville (35-3-4) when scoring first. And at 33-1-0, none other than the Coyotes were second to Boston when it came to defending leads after the second intermission.

By now, everyone in the NHL ought to be up to speed on what happened to the Bruins when they scored first in only two of seven games against Washington and never once led after the second period.

The Predators can do themselves a favor while making life harder for the Coyotes by flexing one of their strengths and denying their opponents a chance to do the same.

Accordingly, it will be on a multitude of Nashville forwards to step up and help draw first blood, preferably en route to an advantage at the 20- and 40-minute marks.

Those who could stand to spruce up their transcript, especially after Game 1, are as follows.

Fisher tied Martin Erat, who supplied Friday’s equalizer on a power-play goal, for the team lead among forwards with 5:03 worth of extra-man ice time in Game 1. Yet in that time, all he mustered was a single shot attempt that went wide of the cage.

Leading up to Erat’s goal, the Predators whiffed on four straight power plays, including one that started on a fresh sheet in the third period when they still trailed, 3-2.

Had the likes of Fisher made more of an impact when the door was open, Nashville could have put Game 1 away in regulation.

During the regular season, Kostitsyn trailed only Erat for the team lead with a .175 shooting percentage. Yet on Friday, he only issued one of Nashville’s 42 stabs at Coyotes goaltender Mike Smith.

And in the postseason as a whole, Kostitsyn has accrued merely one point (a goal) along with five shots on net and a minus-three rating.

Predators stopper Pekka Rinne cannot win his arm-wrestling bout with Smith on his own. He needs players like Kostitsyn to start putting their shooting accuracy to the ultimate test.

After leading the team through the first round with a point-per-game median, all four of Radulov’s shot attempts went wide against Phoenix on Friday.

At least Kostitsyn took part in the 42-shot buffet against Smith, albeit with one fleeting stab. Radulov joined Craig Smith as one of only two Nashville skaters without a single shot on goal and at least Smith got on the scoresheet by assisting on Brandon Yip’s tally.

The late-season returnee from Russia, who logged four goals and 12 points in his first 15 games back with the Preds, is another one of those strikers who needs to give Rinne more offensive support.

The captain’s day job is obviously defense, but he is patently a leaned-on producer for the Predators as well. He tied Patric Hornqvist for the team lead with 230 regular-season shots on goal and is again deadlocked with Hornqvist at the top with 20 shots in the playoffs.

Weber did issue two bids at Smith on Friday, but did nothing to build upon his 22 regular-season power-play points. He was also, quite uncharacteristically, one of three Preds with no hits in the game.

A swift return to normalcy on Sunday could go a long way with Weber getting back to turning tough defense into fruitful offense and helping his team return home in a 1-1 series deadlock.