The Nashville Predators, hoping to build on their recent success, faced the Winnipeg Jets tonight.
Pierre-Luc Dubois got the scoring started 48 seconds in, tapping in an easy backdoor chance to put the Jets up 1-0. This was followed up on the next shift with a fight between Logan Stanley and Alexandre Carrier in response to Stanley’s hit on Cody Glass; Carrier fairly resoundingly lost the fight. The Jets continued to press the attack, peppering Saros with shots throughout the period and maintaining extensive zone time.
Nashville got out to a better start to the second, despite an early delay-of-game penalty from Mattias Ekholm, and Glass finally rewarded them for their play with a goal a little under fourteen minutes into the period. Roman Josi drew a hooking penalty, but the Preds were unable to do anything with it.
With under a minute left in the period Jeremy Lauzon took a tripping penalty of his own. Kyle Connor threatened with a buzzer-beater attempt on the Jets’ power play, but the Preds took their tie into the second intermission and were able to kill the rest of the penalty after their return. Tanner Jeannot capped off a strong Nashville sequence with a goal to give the Preds the 2-1 lead at 5:38.
Connor took a somewhat baffling holding penalty almost halfway through the period, gifting the Preds another power play to squander. Once again, Nashville was unable to generate any real threat with the skater advantage, and the teams returned to five a side. A fracas broke out around the Preds’ net, but no penalties were assessed.
Matt Duchene got a good look at the net late, but missed his shot; with Connor Hellebuyck pulled for the extra attacker just a moment later, this missed chance loomed large, as did Mikael Granlund’s inability to get a shot past Jets defender Josh Morrissey into the empty net. As the Jets continued to attack, Morrissey slid into the boards and headed down the tunnel.
Scheifele hit a crossbar, Nashville iced the puck, Ehlers hit a post, and with 4.3 seconds remaining Yakov Trenin took a penalty. The referees added time, but even 5.6 seconds weren’t enough for the Jets to tie the game 6-on-4.