Nashville @ Vancouver: Game Five Preview

The Vancouver Canucks will find themselves in a situation tonight reminiscent of their first round series against the Chicago Blackhawks.  Vancouver went into game five of that series with home ice advantage at Rogers Arena, and a two game lead in the series up three games to one.  One would think that with all the momentum going their way they would wrap up the series in five games, however, we all know how that worked out.

Vancouver's current 3-1 series lead over Nasvhville is deceiving.  All of the games in the series have been one goal games except for game four which Vancouver won 4-2 thanks to an empty net goal.  Game two was settled in double overtime by a hard wrist shot by Nashville's Matt Halischuk that beat Roberto Luongo glove side.  Game three was also decided in overtime by Ryan Kesler's tip-in goal off of Mikael Samuelsson's shot half way through the first overtime period.

We'll see at 8:00 PM ET tonight if Vancouver has learned anything from their near fatal collapse with Chicago.  My prediction is that the Predators win tonight and bring the series back to Nasvhille for a game six.

Players to watch:

Ryan Kesler - Already has three goals and four assists this series; Nashville has been having a tough time stopping him.

Christian Ehrhoff - Registered five points (one goal, four assists) in the last two games as a defenseman.

Pekka Rinne - Averaged a .958 save percentage the first three games of this series.  He slipped up a bit in game four, but expect him to be on his game tonight.