Novak scores twice in Predators win against Sharks

NASHVILLE – Tommy Novak scored twice for the Nashville Predators in a 5-1 win against the San Jose Sharks at Bridgestone Arena on Saturday.

“[Novak] has tremendous hockey sense and feel for the game with some vision and creativity,” Nashville coach Andrew Brunette said. “As long as he puts the effort away from the puck in, he’s a really good player. He sees things that not too many players see in our league. It’s a really good skillset. We’ve just got to get him always in that 200-foot game. I think he’s worked really hard at it, especially since we started here this year, so it’s fun to see him get rewarded.”

Gustav Nyquist had two assists, Kiefer Sherwood and Luke Evangelista each had a goal and an assist, and Juuse Saros made 31 saves for the Predators (3-3-0), who have won two consecutive games.

Mackenzie Blackwood made 29 saves for the Sharks (0-4-1), who played the first of a five-game road trip.

“Our inability to execute for 60 minutes is pretty apparent,” San Jose forward Nico Sturm said. “We do a lot of good things, but we don’t do it the whole game. That’s costly in the National Hockey League, right? I mean you see good things every once in a while. We’ve got phases where it looks really good. Today, the shot differential was better, but then, we do other things worse than we did the last game.”

Samuel Fagemo gave the Predators a 1-0 lead at 17:15 of the first period with a power-play goal from the top of the right face-off circle off a pass by Nyquist. Fagemo made his debut with Nashville after he was claimed off waivers Oct. 2.

Novak made it 2-0 at 2:06 of the second period on a redirection of a precise shot-pass by Sherwood from the right point.

“We felt good last year and then early this year, it feels like we’re maybe leaving some plays and not creating as much as we’d like,” Novak said. “Today was a good step for us, I think. We made some plays, had some looks and got on the board a couple of times, so it was definitely nice.”

Sherwood made it 3-0 just 12 seconds later at 2:18 with a one-timer from the right circle.

“There’s never an easy game in this league,” Sherwood said. “We knew they were going to come out hungry and fast. Obviously, they were going to push extra hard to get their first win, so we needed to play our game. It took us a little bit, but we were able to establish our identity.”

Novak’s second goal gave the Predators a 4-0 lead on the power play at 2:47 of the third period.

Hertl scored for the Sharks at 10:33 of the third period to make it 4-1, converting on a rebound off a shot by Mario Ferraro.

“I thought we played a pretty good game, and in the second, we stopped playing for one minute and it kind of changed the game,” San Jose forward Tomas Hertl said. “Even after that, I thought the 20 minutes in the second period, we got some good looks. We should score some goals. The power play finally looks better. But it still is not enough.”

Evangelista scored on a breakaway at 13:26 for the 5-1 final.

“It feels good to finally get on the board and contribute to a couple of wins, back-to-back,” Evangelista said. “I was happy to get the ball rolling a little bit [in a 4-1 win against the New York Rangers on Thursday], and finally get on the sheet. Just finally burying one, hopefully, I can just keep the momentum going in the next couple of games.”

NOTES: The second-period goals 12 seconds apart were the fastest two by the Predators since Nov. 30, 2021 (0:09: Yakov Trenin, Filip Forsberg). ... Sharks forward Mikael Granlund did not play after being placed on injured reserve with a lower-body injury Friday. He is expected to play at some point on the trip. … Predators forward Cody Glass did not play and is expected to miss 7-10 days with a lower-body injury.