The Nashville Predators concluded their back-to-back set by falling to the Montreal Canadiens by a 3-0 final on Thursday night at Bell Centre. The result sees the Preds extend their winless skid to six games with one more contest to go on their three-game trip.
“Different night, same result kind of thing, right?” Preds defenseman Alexandre Carrier said. “We're trying to produce more offense, but I think we’ve got to get a bit more greasy in front of their net. We’ve just got to find a way to score goals.”
“It's redundant,” Preds Head Coach Andrew Brunette said. “Similar story pretty much all season. Tonight was another chapter in it.”
Goaltender Justus Annunen made his Predators debut after being acquired from Colorado last Saturday and was excellent in his first showing, stopping 27 of the 29 shots he faced.
“I thought he did it exactly like [Juuse Saros] does,” Preds forward Jonathan Marchessault said. “He gave us a chance to win a hockey game. He was unbelievable, I thought, in the first period, and they came out hard, and they were really good, but he was really good as well. So he gave us a chance to win and just didn’t win again.”
The Canadiens went up 1-0 in the opening period when Jake Evans converted on a shorthanded chance and beat Annunen short side. That score held through the rest of the first frame and past the second stanza as well, but in the third, Patrik Laine scored at 1:14 with a 5-on-3 advantage to put Montreal up by two before the home team finished the night with an empty-netter.
“[We’ve got] to go back to the basics,” Carrier said. “Sometimes we try to make an extra play in the O-zone, and it doesn't work out. We’ve just got to keep it simple, put it on net. I think [midway through the game], we had seven shots on net, right? So, we’ve got to put more pucks on net. And after that, it's going to open up, but we’ve got to first get there.”
Notes:
Prior to Thursday’s game, the Preds announced centerman Ryan O’Reilly is week-to-week with a lower-body injury. Defenseman Jeremy Lauzon (lower body) was added to Injured Reserve, and forward Michael McCarron was removed from IR and returned to the Nashville lineup.
In addition to O’Reilly, forward Tommy Novak and defenseman Marc Del Gaizo were scratched against the Canadiens.
Nashville’s three-game trip concludes Saturday night in Ottawa before the Preds return home to host the Calgary Flames on Tuesday evening at Bridgestone Arena.
