Road-battered Preds back home for Blackhawks

There's only one "L" combined in "Detroit," "Colorado," "San Jose" and "Vancouver," but the Nashville Predators nonetheless found three of them during a recent road trip through those cities.

Nashville returns home to Bridgestone Arena for Saturday's game against the Chicago Blackhawks as losers of three straight and five of six, but the club remains hopeful the comfort of home ice can provide a spark.

"It's the end of a long road trip for us, lots of traveling, four time zones, as well," Predators center Ryan Johansen told reporters. "We'll get back, take a couple of days, and then take our next game and play our brand of hockey and our best hockey, and we'll go from there."

The Predators opened their trip with a 6-1 victory at Detroit before suffering three straight setbacks that have put them on their longest losing streak of the season. Tuesday's road trip finale at Vancouver was tight into the third period, but a struggling penalty kill ultimately made the difference, as the Canucks netted three goals with the man advantage during a 5-3 victory.

"It's tough," Predators coach Peter Laviolette said. "Guys played hard and kept fighting back in the game and just couldn't get there."

Saturday's game is the first in a three-game homestand for Nashville. The Predators' most recent three-game homestand also opened against the Blackhawks, as Nashville rolled 3-0 on Oct. 29 behind Nick Bonino's natural hat trick and a 20-save shutout from Pekka Rinne.

Chicago has won four of seven since that night to climb back to .500. Coach Jeremy Colliton's recent decision to greenlight the team's transition attack has produced a string of scoring chances and seen the team tally five goals in three of its past four games while earning seven of eight possible points during that span.

"We're coming across the ice really well in the 'D' zone, chipping pucks in, getting pucks out of our zone -- I think that's kind of what's leading to our offense right now," forward Kirby Dach told the Chicago Sun-Times. "Look at a lot of our goals: 3-on-2s, 2-on-1s, odd-man rushes."

Defenseman Calvin de Haan, who scored his first goal of the season Wednesday at Las Vegas to help the Blackhawks to their first regulation road win of the campaign, agrees.

"It seems like the floodgates have opened a little bit and we're scoring a ton of goals now," de Haan told the Sun-Times. "But the biggest part for us is our goaltending is giving us a chance to win every night. That instills confidence in everybody on the ice and on the bench."

Corey Crawford stopped 39 of 42 shots against the Golden Knights, continuing a recent resurgence. Crawford is 2-0-2 with a 2.72 goals-against average and .929 save percentage in his past four starts, rebounding from a 1-4-0 start that included a 3.67 GAA.

Forward Patrick Kane enters play on a seven-game point streak.

After Saturday, the Predators and Blackhawks aren't slated to meet again until Jan. 9 in Chicago. The season series is set to conclude with games Feb. 21 and March 22 at United Center.

--Field Level Media