Preds Conclude Road Trip with Loss to Panthers

Pekka Rinne kept the Predators in Friday's game until the final horn, but Nashville fell to the Florida Panthers, 2-1, at BB&T Center. The result gives the Preds and Panthers a split of their back-to-back set, as the visitors now head back home with a 1-3-0 record on their four-game trip.
Colton Sissons scored the lone goal of the night for Nashville, and RInne made 34 saves, including 20 in the opening period. But following Thursday's dramatic comeback, the Preds weren't able to do the same one night later.

"Pekka was very good, he had an excellent game tonight, but tonight, we weren't good enough," Preds Head Coach John Hynes said. "We didn't have enough juice, we didn't have enough guys going; too many inconsistencies throughout the lineup in the second night of a back-to-back. It wasn't a good enough game for us to be able to push and win the game, so we've got to talk about getting more consistent within our game, and then individual performances."

"I personally felt good…and I still think that we had a pretty decent first period, even though they had a ton of shots," Rinne said. "They got a lot of shots on the power play, and as the game went along, I don't think we were happy with the second period. But, we gave it a push again in a third, and even in the dying seconds, we had a good chance to tie the game, but it's disappointing for sure."
Sissons gave the Preds a 1-0 lead just over four minutes into the contest when he took a feed from Roman Josi and beat Panthers goaltender Chris Driedger with a deflected rebound that just trickled over the line.

That score held until the second stanza, but Florida tallied twice in the period with goals from Aleksander Barkov and Carter Verhaeghe, and that was enough for the Panthers to collect their sixth win of the season and gain another two points in the Central Division.
With the Florida road trip now complete, the Preds will head back home and bring the good and the bad back with them as they look to improve with a four-game homestand coming up.
"There's a number of learning lessons," Sissons said of the road trip. "Discipline has been a big, big factor, specialty teams and just finding a more consistent game throughout the night. We had some lows and periods [where we] actually got pretty sidetracked in some games from our lack of discipline. It's hard to keep momentum when you're doing that all the time, so there's a number of lessons."
"We talk about it, we try to work on things and the coaches are doing everything they can to help us get through this and find consistency," Rinne said. "We've got to figure out our inconsistency. It's a short season, and there's not a lot of time and the schedule is really tight so you've got to win. That's the bottom line."

Notes:
After being injured in Thursday's win, Preds center Ryan Johansen missed Friday's game and is day-to-day with an upper-body injury.
Nashville also scratched Jarred Tinordi and Luke Kunin (lower body, day-to-day) on Friday. Mark Borowiecki and Mathieu Olivier returned to the Preds lineup on Friday after sitting out Thursday's matchup.
The Predators now return to Nashville for a four-game homestand of their own, and it begins with a back-to-back set against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Monday and Tuesday night at Bridgestone Arena. The Preds then host the Detroit Red Wings for the first time this season later in the week.