The Nashville Predators fell to the Buffalo Sabres by a 4-3 final on Friday night at KeyBank Center. The result gives the Preds a third consecutive loss to start a back-to-back set through Buffalo and Pittsburgh.
Luke Evangelista, Brady Skjei and Tommy Novak all tallied in the loss, but the Sabres broke a 3-3 tie with just over two minutes to play.
“It’s frustrating to say the least,” Skjei said. “We had moments in that game where we were playing really well. We didn't come out probably how we wanted, but fought back into it and then started playing really well in the second period and glimpses in the third and just…definitely frustrated.”
“Kind of threw away the game, made classic mistakes at the wrong times, and gave them free offense, free goals,” Preds Head Coach Andrew Brunette said. “I thought lots of the game, especially through the second [period], I thought we owned the game and lost momentum on the power play…weren’t that great in the third and made some mistakes.”
Buffalo took a 2-0 lead less than 10 minutes into the contest with goals from Ryan McLeod and Jiri Kulich, but Nashville stormed back with three of their own.
First, Evangelista, who returned to the lineup after missing a month with a lower-body injury, redirected a Justin Barron point shot past Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen to get the Preds on the board. Then, before the opening period was out, Brady Skjei’s shot deflected off traffic in front and floated up and into the cage to even the score at 2-2 through 20 minutes.
In the second stanza, a beautiful display of stickhandling from Fedor Svechkov led to a dish to Brady Skjei, and Novak tipped the blueliner’s shot into the twine to give Nashville their first lead of the night. But, following more pressure from the Preds, former Nashville forward Jason Zucker evened the score once more headed into the third.
That final period saw Nashville with power-play opportunities, but it was Kulich who potted his second of the night late in regulation to send the Sabres home happy and the Preds headed to Pittsburgh looking to get back into the win column.
“I think if we play how we did for stretches in that game, we'll be just fine,” Skjei said. “I think we were dominating the game, and holding onto pucks and making plays. Just got to try to do that for a full 60 minutes instead of 40, or whatever it was tonight. So, we’ve got to move past it, and we’ve got a big game tomorrow night against Pittsburgh.”
“I’d say finish the job,” Brunette said on what he’d like to see done differently against the Penguins.
Notes:
Prior to Friday’s game, the Predators recalled goaltender Matt Murray from Milwaukee to back up Justus Annunen after Juuse Saros was scratched due to illness. Nashville also reassigned defenseman Kevin Gravel to the Admirals and activated Evangelista from IR. Vinnie Hinostroza was Nashville's lone healthy scratch against the Sabres.
Ryan O'Reilly (296-504—800) tallied an assist to become the third member of the 2009 NHL Draft class to record 800 points behind John Tavares (1,082) and Matt Duchene (857).
The Preds will conclude their fathers trip by completing a back-to-back set on Saturday night in Pittsburgh against the Penguins before returning home to host Ottawa on Monday.
