Colorado @ Nashville preview

Last Meeting ( Nov 7, 2019 ) Nashville 4, Colorado 9

The Nashville Predators may be finding their groove at the right time and hope to build off an inspiring victory last time out when they host the red-hot Colorado Avalanche on Saturday night. Mikael Granlund scored with one-tenth of a second left in regulation to tie the game and added the winner in overtime for a 4-3 victory over Calgary on Thursday, improving the Predators to 6-1-1 in the past eight contests with their third straight win.

Nashville is in a virtual tie with Winnipeg for the second wild card position in the Western Conference with three games in hand on the Jets and one behind Calgary for the top spot while playing two less contests. “I think we’ve been trending in the right direction for sure,” Predators forward Colton Sissons told reporters after scoring for the second time in three games Thursday. “I think this game will definitely give us some confidence and give us a little bit of juice. … We’ll take that and run.” The Avalanche can set a franchise record with an eighth consecutive road victory and win their sixth straight overall Saturday after getting two goals from Tyson Jost and 45 saves from Pavel Francouz to edge Carolina 3-2 on Friday, matching their 7-0-0 run away from home in early 1999. “It’s good for us. We stuck with it,” Jost told Altitude after snapping a 36-game goal drought. “Obviously, I don’t think it was our best game. At times we were a little bit sloppy and we were fighting it a little, but it’s good to face some adversity and fight back.”

TIME: 7 p.m. ET. TV: Altitude, FS Tennessee

ABOUT THE AVALANCHE (38-18-7): Pavel Francouz has been outstanding in net since Philipp Grubauer went down with a lower-body injury earlier this month and made 45 saves Friday to improve to 6-0-1 with a .942 save percentage in February. The workload for Francouz (18-5-3), who has played two of the last three nights and made six straight starts, could allow Michael Hutchinson to get his first chance since being acquired from Toronto. Center Nathan MacKinnon leads the team with 33 goals and 85 points, but has not scored while managing one assist (the 299th of his career) in the last four games and rookie defenseman Cale Makar is second on the team with 46 points.

ABOUT THE PREDATORS (32-23-8): Captain Roman Josi (298 career assists) snapped a 26-game goal scoring drought and recorded a point for the first time in six contests Thursday, but the All-Star defenseman still leads the team by a wide margin with 58 points. Forward Filip Forsberg owns three assists in the past three games and is second behind Josi with 43 points while Granlund has scored seven times and set up four others over the past 12 contests. Juuse Saros (14-10-4, .906 save percentage) has won the last three games with Pekka Rinne (18-13-4, .900) out because of illness, but the 37-year-old Finn could be ready for a start.

OVERTIME

1. Colorado D Erik Johnson had an assist Friday to pull within two points of 300 for his career.

2. Nashville D Ryan Ellis has registered a goal and five assists in four games since returning from a concussion sustained New Year’s Day.

3. The Avalanche won 9-4 on Nov. 7 in the first of four meetings in 2019-20 after taking the final matchup last season 5-0.

PREDICTION: Predators 4, Avalanche 3