The Nashville Predators had a late push, but they ultimately fell to the Colorado Avalanche by a 5-2 final on Saturday night at Ball Arena. The result sees the Preds split their two-game road trip and move to 1-1-1 against Colorado this season.
Steven Stamkos and Luke Evangelista scored in the final seven minutes of regulation before Colorado added a pair of empty-netters, and the Preds outshot the Avs by a 39-34 margin in a game that could have gone Nashville’s way.
“I thought we played pretty well,” Stamkos said. “We battled back at the end. We never quit. We got some goals. We got rewarded, but we could have put out a lot more. [I] give their goaltender credit. He played well, but I thought we created enough to win, and a couple kind of self-inflicted wounds on the goals against, which we clean those up and we bury our chances, it’s a different game. But it was a much better overall effort in terms of executing, [we] generated plenty of chances. For whatever reason this year, they're not going in in a timely manner.”
“It's heartbreaking in different ways - I thought we played a really good game,” Preds Head Coach Andrew Brunette said. “We look to our identity that’s starting to come. We didn't get the result tonight, and put ourselves in a position, just a couple mistakes, and opened our back on that, and we didn't make many tonight. The third goal hurt a little bit and [it was] kind of hard to overcome that one, but we stayed with it.”
The Predators had the better of the chances in the opening 20 minutes, but after neither team was able to break the ice in the first, Ross Colton gave the Avalanche a 1-0 lead when he beat Juuse Saros with a one-timer midway through the second stanza.
Nathan MacKinnon put the home team up by two when he capitalized on a turnover before the middle frame was out, and Colorado took a 3-0 lead early in the third period. But Nashville kept pushing, and Stamkos finished off a pretty passing play with linemates Jonathan Marchessault and Filip Forsberg and beat Avs goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood to get the visitors on the board.
“I think just playing with [Forsberg] and [Marchessault] now for three games, I think you start to create some rhythm, some chemistry,” Stamkos said. “And for me, just being in the middle of the ice, being able to utilize some speed and getting the puck in areas where I have some time and space to carry the puck to the neutral zone, has been a big help for me. And playing with two guys that are very gifted offensively. You see on the goal, we're in the right positions and knew where each other were. I thought [we made] some great plays. Had plenty of chances. They're going to go in. I think the last three games we can certainly build off some of the offense we've created.”
Just over two minutes later, Evangelista brought the Preds to within one, but that was as close as they came before the Avalanche put two into an empty net as Nashville pushed for an equalizer.
Now, the Predators will head home to start a four-game homestand on Tuesday night against the New York Rangers, and although there are no moral victories, Nashville will have plenty to build on off of Saturday’s effort in Colorado.
“In a year that it's been tough to find some of those moral victories, with the way things have gone tonight, [it’s] certainly one of those,” Stamkos said. “And we’ve just got to build on that. It's frustrating when you start to play the game the right way, the way that we want to, and you don't necessarily see the results. That's the old saying, you just stick with it.”
“There’s lots of stuff [we can take from this game],” Brunette said. “I think through the course of this season so far, we've struggled a little bit with the consistency of the effort or or the style of play that we want to play. And these last few games are a really good example of when we play the style of play we get to our identity, we’re hard to play against. I'm sure [Colorado staff is] talking to [their players] over there, I'm sure they're thinking, [this] game wasn't an easy game for them. I thought we did a lot of good things that probably deserved a better result.”
Notes:
Although he skated on Saturday morning, Preds Captain Roman Josi missed both games of the road trip and remains day-to-day with a lower-body injury. Forwards Juuso Parssinen and Fedor Svechkov were also scratched.
The Preds will now return to Nashville and begin a four-game homestand starting Tuesday night when the Rangers come to town. The Predators will then host Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Carolina before the Christmas break arrives.
