The Nashville Predators were unable to find the scoresheet as they fell to the Detroit Red Wings by a 3-0 final on Saturday night at Little Caesars Arena. Juuse Saros returned to the Nashville lineup after missing the season opener and made 19 saves in the effort.
Nashville put 41 shots on the Detroit net, but Cam Talbot stopped every single one as the Preds were left disappointed at the end of the night.
“A little frustrating,” Preds Head Coach Andrew Brunette said of the game. “I thought we did some good things. I think we let him see the puck a little bit too much, but overall, I thought we did enough to win. [We had a] couple breakdowns in our own zone, kind of cost us those two goals. So, we’ve got to be careful not to get frustrated. Take the good and move on and fix what was bad.”
“It's frustrating,” Preds forward Ryan O’Reilly said. “We did some good things well and still have things to improve on, but we need to score some goals. And I know for myself, [we’re] usually winning some more battles in front of the net… We all know we have to be better in front of the net and make it more difficult on whatever goalie we're playing. But [there were] some good things. You know the effort’s there, guys are trying to do the right things. It's just going to be hard to get to where we want to be.”
Nashville registered 17 shots alone in the opening period, but the game remained goalless until the 1:02 mark of the middle frame when J.T. Compher tipped a shot past Saros to give the Red Wings a 1-0 lead.
That score held until Andrew Copp put the Wings ahead by two early in the third, and Detroit added an empty netter before the night was out.
“I mean, Talbot was great regardless,” Brunette said. “We did enough to put some by him. He was outstanding, but I think we've gotten cute a little bit right now. I think we're trying to find our flow and our rhythm as a group. We added some really good scorers, and sometimes we're deferring to be a little cuter than a little harder. We all know in this League, it's usually harder that wins, not cuter.”
Now, the Predators will return to Bridgestone Arena to start a four-game homestand on Tuesday, and they’ll be eager to find their first win of the season in the process.
“The effort’s there, it's just building on top of it,” O’Reilly said. “I thought, at times, we didn't have momentum. We took a little too long to kind of get it back, or at least, establish our quickness in the way we close. If we can do that a little quicker, when we do get momentum, it's gonna help us a lot. But we got a good opportunity to go home to kind of get this thing back on track.”
Notes:
Saturday marked Preds forward Filip Forsberg’s 700th career game. Forsberg became just the sixth player in franchise history to play at least 700 games with the club (David Legwand, Roman Josi, Shea Weber, Martin Erat, Mattias Ekholm).
Forward Juuso Parssinen was Nashville’s lone scratch on Saturday in Detroit.
The Preds will now head back to Tennessee to begin a four-game homestand on Tuesday night when they host the Seattle Kraken at Bridgestone Arena.
