The Preds lines at the start of the game (in order of first shift)
    Legwand centering Bourque and Hornqvist
    Fisher centering Erat and S. Kostitsyn
    Gaustad centering Halischuk and Tootoo
    Spaling centering Wilson and Yip

Defense pairings:
    Josi and Gill
    Suter and Weber
    Bouillon and Klein


THREE MUSINGS:
Wide Open Start -- The first six-and-half minutes of play was wide open run-and-gun hockey with both teams trading scoring chances. Not the style of game the Preds really want to play, but it did make for an entertaining start. And both teams were flying around the ice. Rinne got into the game early as he was forced to make three or four quality stops, including a one-on-goalie down low by Boedker just under five minutes into the game.

First Fight -- We saw the first fight of the series at the 10:00 mark of the first period with Gaustad and Chipchura dropping the gloves after a neutral zone faceoff. Gaustad got the quick knockdown and then the bout continued with an extended "round 2" ending fairly evenly -- though Gaustad did land a big uppercut late.

Detail Plays -- The Preds "level of detail" in the first period was not as strong tonight as the team showed during Game 3 on Wednesday night. Nashville had a couple of failed clears coming out of the defensive zone, struggled to get the puck deep on neutral zone dump-ins and wasn't as crisp on angles for the forecheck. As a result, the Coyotes won the races to the majority of the loose pucks in the first period. Further, Nashville seemingly lost every one-on-one battle along the boards, infact the Phoenix goal came when Gill lost a one-on-one battle in the corner after a Coyotes hard rim around the boards; the Coyotes came out of the corner clean with a three-on-two attack advantage and Doan used the time to set up traffic in front of the net for a 1-0 Phoenix lead.