Hot off the heels of a surprising 5-2 victory over the struggling Edmonton Oilers, Ryan O’Reilly and the Nashville Predators headed to Calgary on Tuesday night to match up against the Flames.
The Predators would find themselves on the defensive early, as the Flames rushed out to a fast start. In the first three minutes, the Flames got nine shot attempts and three shots on goal on the sluggish Nashville defense. The early action didn’t phase goaltender Juuse Saros, and the Predators would reward the effort with their first sustained offensive zone possession of the game, led by Filip Forsberg, and a couple of good series later, the current iteration of the “Admiral” line struck for the first goal of the game by Michael McCarron, assisted by Liam Foudy and Marc Del Gaizo.
Despite the gaining the lead a quarter of the way through the period, Nashville would continue to play on their heels, getting just one more shot in the first eight minutes of the game. As Calgary continued to pepper shot attempts towards Juuse Saros, Jeremy Lauzon would get called for interference, but were able to kill the penalty with just a couple of shots on goal.
The momentum from the penalty kill didn’t last long, as once again the Flames behind the efforts of Nazem Kadri continued to put a massive amount of pressure on Saros. Still reeling and looking to find any kind of momentum, the Predators once again called on the young players. Despite being outshot 13-4 with just six minutes remaining in the first period, the quick Andrew Brunette offense was able to create a scoring opportunity off of a stretch pass from Tommy Novak where Luke Evangelista and Keifer Sherwood would combine to get yet another goal – Sherwood another incredible goal and Evangelista picking up his eighth point – tied for the rookie lead.
If you couldn’t see the scoreboard, you’d think that Calgary was dominating the Predators – and they continued to play that way to end the first, outshot 17-6. Nashville started the second period on the power play, but Calgary’s fourth-best penalty kill was able to snuff it out early, getting a couple of good lucks on Saros shorthanded.
The second period continued much the same way the first ended: Calgary continued to give Juuse Saros a heavy workload following his day off, and midway through the second, Nashville had doubled it’s shot total, but still trailed 22-12. Play would finally slow down for the Predators at the midway point, but not for the right reasons – Roman Josi would get called for a high-stick that put Nashville back on their heels again. But the Predators would not relent, and the penalty would get killed off once again. With Saros and the defense corps stepping up big time, the forwards would get in on the action, including this incredible shift by Filip Forsberg.
Great, right? That effort was rewarded a few seconds later as Nikita Zadorov would connect with Dillion Dube to get the Flames’ first goal with 5 minutes left in the second. With scoreboard starting to match the flow of the game on the ice, the Flames kept on the pressure, pushing Juuse Saros to make 26 saves on 27 shots against.
As the Predators came back on the ice after the second intermission, the team looked like one that knew they were lucky to enter the third with the lead. They would get a nice opening possession in the Calgary zone, and started to look like a team capable of stringing together a series of good offensive chances about five minutes into the period. Still, they trailed 30-18 in the shot count, and after an incredible stress pass about 120 feet led to a spectacular Juuse Saros save, the Flames kept on the pressure, recovering the rebound and shortly after, Noah Hanafin would score the game-tying goal.
The Predators, now without the armor of a lead on the scoresheet, looked defeated. Just over a minute and a half later, former Winnipeg Jet Blake Coleman would finally snatch the lead for the Flames with 13:20 left in the game.
Nashville would get a chance to breathe with another power play attempt a minute or so later, but even that wasn’t going right, as they gave up an incredibly dangerous shorthanded shot on Juuse Saros and never found momentum throughout. With just five minutes left in the game, the Predators had managed only ONE shot on goal the entire period, with Calgary doubling them up 35-17 in shots on goal (70-37 in total shot attempts). As Nashville desperately fended off yet another sustained Calgary possession, long shifts would keep the Predators’ bottom six on the ice for a full minute and a half. After a smart Juuse Saros stop, the top units came on the ice for a final offensive push. Filip Forsberg and Ryan O’Reilly would push Nashville up the ice in a hurry, and Forsberg would launch a pass towards O’Reilly and Nyquist, with the former getting a good shot on goal with a Markstrom save. After the stop, Saros came off the ice and Nashville would play the final 3 minutes with an empty net.
Frequent misplays kept the Nashville comeback at bay, as Saros would have to come on and off the ice a couple times. With the top unit still on the ice, the Predators would spend most of the next minute trying to complete passes and recover pucks before Nazem Kadri would seal the deal, sending in the empty netter for a 4-2 lead.
Nashville would end the night looking absolutely dominated and despite having the lead for most of the game, it never felt like they were in control, and the Predators limp out of the Saddledome with a 1-3-0 record on the road trip and 5-7-0 overall.
Three Stars
Third Star: G Juuse Saros – NSH – 35 saves on 38 shots (92.1%), 3 goals allowed on 3.61 expected goals against
Second Star: F Nazem Kadri – CGY – 1 goal, 1 assist, 2 points
First Star: F Yegor Sharangovich – CGY – 2 assists, 2 points