The last-place Predators as soon as once more tried to staple collectively a win in the present day, towards a goalie who’s struggled, and as soon as once more simply couldn’t discover the offense to get themselves out of bother.
They began off with an early objective, courtesy of Roman Josi and arrange by Steven Stamkos, and had some extra beauty at the beginning. Round 5 minutes in, Anthony Cirelli took a puck to the face and the sport was stopped first to permit Cirelli to get off the ice after which to wash up the blood.
When play resumed, Stamkos took an offensive zone penalty, and whereas the Preds bought it killed off — and even managed a shorthanded probability, courtesy of Cole Smith — it wasn’t nice for his or her momentum. They bought one other nice probability very late within the interval when Lightning goalie Jonas Johansson happened half a mile out of the online to play the puck and mishandled it, however Johansson was in a position to get again into his internet earlier than Luke Evangelista may line up the angle.
Aside from that, although, the remainder of the primary was principally Tampa’s, even when Ryan McDonagh — again along with his outdated workforce — took a slash at Stamkos and put the Bolts shorthanded. Cirelli, displaying no lasting in poor health results from that earlier harm, had a incredible shorthanded probability stopped by an excellent higher save from Juuse Saros. Intermission, and even getting back from intermission with out Nikita Kucherov, didn’t sluggish the Bolts down a lot.
Late within the energy play, Stamkos took his second penalty of the sport, whereas Jonathan Marchessault and JJ Moser took coincidental roughing minors towards one another. Saros needed to make one other incredible save on Brayden Level, however the Preds’ luck ran out on their subsequent energy play — a Michael Eyssimont penalty — when Cirelli transformed one other shorthanded attempt to tie the sport at 4:06 of the second.
Gage Goncalves tipped a shot by way of visitors 4 minutes later to offer the Lightning the lead. The Preds rallied after that, with Evangelista and Mark Jankowski setting Josi as much as tie the sport once more, and the second interval ended with some seesawing of play.
The third started with Kucherov’s return and Saros clearing the puck over the glass simply 19 seconds in, placing Nashville again on the penalty kill. The Preds killed it off and nearly managed to attain as Zach L’Heureux, who’d served it for Saros, emerged from the field.
Saros made a incredible save on the Preds’ outdated nemesis Jake Guentzel round midway by way of the third, which was stunning to see. Play continued to swing wildly as each groups fought for the equalizer earlier than the top of regulation, however neither succeeded.
41 seconds into additional time, Filip Forsberg took a penalty — including to the whole on this chippy recreation — and the Bolts bought a 4-on-3 energy play. They didn’t waste any time, with Level managing, like Cirelli earlier than him, to make good on a scoring try.
The Preds are again in motion tomorrow evening towards the Minnesota Wild.
