"I thought we played a good game," Preds centerman Ryan Johansen said. "Other than a couple of hiccups, they didn't have much. The fun, analytical side of it, we out-zoned them for a lot of the game. [It was] just one of those nights. They scored two goals, and we weren't able to find the back of the net."
"Overall, [we] played a pretty solid game," Preds Head Coach John Hynes said. "I thought we did generate a lot of offensive-zone time, a lot of pressure, a lot of grade-A chances, but we weren't able to capitalize tonight, and that's the thing. I think the other part is when we're on the attack like we were, sometimes we gave up some big plays, which I think we can clean up. But for the most part, we probably deserved better than a shutout, but we didn't find a way to do it. The end result is what we got."
The Bruins held a 1-0 lead after 20 minutes of play courtesy of a Jake DeBrusk goal with just one second remaining on a man advantage, and Boston went up by two just 20 seconds into the second stanza when Brandon Carlo beat Preds netminder Juuse Saros.
The Preds kept pushing, and they registered 16 shots in the third period alone, but they were unable to solve Swayman, the second time this season Nashville has been shut out.
Roman Josi led Nashville with nine shots on goal, Nick Cousins had five, and Saros stopped 31 of 33 at the other end of the ice.
Nashville will now turn their attention to Saturday evening when they welcome the Montreal Canadiens to town, and the home team will look to do much of the same, but just with a few pucks in the back of the net next time.
"Yeah, especially when you play pretty well like we did tonight, you feel like you deserve more, deserve to get at least a point or some points," Johansen said. "But there's good hockey teams in this League, there's good players, so just keep moving forward."
"I think that our guys felt like they played a pretty solid game, [but] we didn't find a way to win it," Hynes said. "We haven't strung wins together. I know they'll be able to come back and understand how we need to play, and we'll make some adjustments and see if we can be a little bit better against Montreal, but it's a good group. They have a lot of pride, they're highly competitive; I think you see the way that we play, the way that we respond to adversity and sometimes the way that we respond after a loss. I don't expect anything different come Saturday."
