Preds Start Homestand with Loss to Canucks

Philip Tomasino scored Nashville's lone goal as the Predators fell to the Vancouver Canucks by a 3-1 final on Tuesday night at Bridgestone Arena. The result extends Nashville's winless streak to four games as they conclude the second half of their back-to-back with a pair of losses to St. Louis and now Vancouver.
Although the Preds recently saw defeats in Boston and St. Louis, they weren't displeased with how they played in those two outings, but Tuesday's effort wasn't what Nashville wants as a group.

"The details of our game have to be better," Preds Head Coach John Hynes said. "We've got to coach it better, the players have to do it better and we just weren't at a level that is going to be good enough with the details of our game to be at our best. We've had some good stretches here, and right now the attention to detail we need to play with, the consistency level needs to be better, and that's what we want to focus on here. We're not playing the way that we need to play to be able to give ourselves a chance to win."
"We're obviously not happy with the loss," Preds Captain Roman Josi said. "I think the first period was kind of even, I felt like we didn't get the puck in enough - we didn't get enough zone time and we kind of turned it over a couple of times. And I think in the second, I felt like we didn't play hard enough. We gave them a lot of time in our zone, and they kind of started creating a lot of stuff in our end. All in all I think it's a disappointing loss. There's definitely things we could have done better."
Neither team was able to convert in the opening 20 minutes, but on a man advantage early in the second stanza, Tomasino faked and then snapped a shot from the right circle past Canucks goaltender Thatcher Demko for his sixth of the season and a 1-0 lead. Less than five minutes later, however, Elias Pettersson pounced on a rebound and went upstairs on Preds goaltender David Rittich to even the score at 1-1 through two periods.

From there, Vancouver added two in the final frame - the first from Brock Boeser which proved to be the game-winner, and another from Juho Lammikko to finish off the scoring on the night.
Rittich stopped 21 shots on the night in his first appearance at home as a member of the Predators to move his record to 3-2-1 on the season, and defenseman Jeremy Davies skated 12:30 and registered three shots as he made his season debut.
"We've got to look back on this one and continue to get better," Tomasino said. "There's also some positives that we can look at as well, and I think there's a lot to learn from, for sure. We're going to continue to get better, and I think maybe a little rest tomorrow and to get back on Thursday will be good for us."
The Preds will indeed return to ice on Thursday as division rival Winnipeg comes to town, and as Josi said, the group needs to continue to be honest with their game as they look to improve upon the details moving forward.
"This is part of the journey you're on in the regular season," Hynes said. "There's times where it goes really well for you and you're clicking on all cylinders and you find ways to win. When you're in those situations, you have to continue to get better… And now we're in a situation where you're going to go through over 82 games where the details in your game slip, the consistency level in your game slips and you can't get too low either. You've got to be able to get better when things are going really well for you, and you have to be able to get better when things aren't going your way.
"This is a situation we're in now. We have to focus on what we can control, and the only thing we can control is not what has happened - we've got to take some things out of this game - but we've got to move on and we've got to focus on getting better and getting the details and the consistency level in our game that makes us a really difficult team to play. That message is the same: win, lose, good streak, tough streak, it's about what you can control, and what we can control, we're not controlling right now. So, we've got to fix it."

Notes:

Prior to Tuesday's game, the Predators recalled defenseman Jeremy Davies from the taxi squad and reassigned forward Matt Luff to Milwaukee (AHL).
Defensemen Ben Harpur and Dante Fabbro (upper-body, week-to-week) were scratched on Tuesday, and Mattias Ekholm remained on the NHL's COVID-19 protocol list.
Nashville's three-game homestand continues on Thursday night when the Preds welcome the Winnipeg Jets to town before the Detroit Red Wings visit Bridgestone Arena on Saturday.