Preds travel into hostile territory to take on Anaheim

The Nashville Predators head into Anaheim tonight to take on the Ducks, who have quickly become the new nemesis around Pred nation. Nashville defeated the Ducks on Oct. 29 at Bridgestone Arena by a score of 3-0 in a game where physicality was plentiful.

Simply put, these two teams aren't very fond of each other. Anaheim still has a bad taste in their mouths from the playoffs last spring. Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf expressed his distaste against Jordin Tootoo after the Preds 3-0 win on Oct. 29 by accusing Tootoo of diving.

The fact of the matter is that the Ducks have 135 penalty minutes against Nashville since the beginning of last April's playoff series until now. In that same period of time, the Preds have 83 penalty minutes against the Ducks. Former Predators defenseman Shane O'Brien accounted for 14 of those 83 penalty minutes for the Preds. It may be time for the Ducks to stop complaining and look in the mirror.

Nashville is coming off of a 4-3 loss in Los Angeles last night. Anders Lindback made his first start of the year, and the Patric Hornqvist scored a goal for the sixth consecutive game.

David Legwand is expected to miss tonight's game against Anaheim, but Sergei Kostitsyn is expected to play. One would assume that Pekka Rinne would be making the start in goal for the Predators tonight.

Anaheim has a 5-6-3 record on the year so far and have lost five games in a row. Teemu Selanne leads the team in points with 14, and Bobby Ryan only has six points in 14 games played.

It should be an intense game once again between these two teams with lots of extra curricular activity after the whistle. The fans at the Honda Center will be revved up for this game given that the Predators eliminated the Ducks last year.

My player to watch for the Ducks is Corey Perry. He's a big offensive threat, but he also does a lot of things after the play is over to try and get under the skin of his opponents. Watch Perry after the whistle is blown tonight.

For Nashville, my player to watch is Shea Weber. Weber only has one goal in 14 games this year. Teams are trying to take away his shot, and they've been doing a pretty good job. However, Weber has too much firepower for that trend to continue. Look for him to score a goal tonight.