Thoughts from Monday's Practice Thoughts from Tuesday's Practice   Thoughts from Wednesday's Practice

A couple notes from today's morning skate practice:

- Strong attendance on the ice for an optional game day skate: 12 forwards, four defensemen, and two goaltenders.


- Coach Trotz was coy with game night roster, but hinted that J-P Dumont could be re-inserted into the lineup tonight. He said it was still something he's mulling over, but Coach Trotz usually has a purpose when he drops hints like that.


- Outside of the long-term injuries to Bouillon, Lombardi, and O'Reilly, Coach Trotz indicated that the rest of the team remains in good health.


- Not a surprise, but all indications point to Pekka Rinne back in the net tonight for the Predators and Roberto Luongo in goal for Vancouver. It would set up a match-up between the Western Conference's top-two goaltenders in Save Percentage (Rinne - .930; Luongo - .926).


- Pekka Rinne talked about Alexander Sulzer's ability to step into the lineup recently and the level of play Sulzer's provided...
"It's great to see him having success. I've known him since my days in Milwaukee. Every year he's a better player and you can see his confidence level is getting higher and higher. He's playing solid hockey right now. I'm happy for him and he's proven that he belongs in the NHL."


- I asked Rinne which game was more challenging Tuesday night's 50-shot outing against San Jose or Saturday night's 18-shot game against Colorado...
"The colorado game was pretty tough. Sometimes it's tough to stay on top of things when you don't face too many shots; in the third period I started to see more shots, but before that I barely had any shots. A lot of times those are almost the toughest games to play."


- Former Preds defenseman Dan Hamhuis will not be playing tonight. He's out with concussion symptoms. Tonight would have been Hamhuis's first trip back to Nashville since signing with Vancouver as a free agent this summer.