O’Reilly and Gustav Nyquist tallied for the Preds, and goaltender Juuse Saros was brilliant while making 24 saves on the night, but Nick Paul potted the winner in overtime to give Nashville a single point in the effort.
“I thought we were resilient again,” Preds Head Coach Andrew Brunette said. “We grinded away. It wasn't a pretty, picture-perfect kind of game. Obviously, we’re running a little bit on fumes with the back-to-back, [three games in four nights], travel - a little bit of an emotional kind of day. So, I thought we did a good job just trying to stay in the moment and grab two points. We wanted two, we got one, but just to get one here on the road was big.”
Tampa Bay had a 2-0 advantage through one period of play thanks to goals from Brayden Point and Mitchell Chaffee, but as was the case last Friday night in Chicago, the Predators found a way to reverse their fortunes.
Nikita Kucherov appeared to put the Lightning up by three goals in the second stanza, but once again, the Preds challenged the play for an offside call, and they were indeed successful.
And yes, as was the case in Chicago, Nashville then went on the attack. First, O’Reilly took a pass in tight off his skate and spun to slide the puck past Andrei Vasilevskiy and over the goal line for a power-play marker to get the Preds on the board. Then, Tampa Bay got caught on a line change, Stamkos found Nyquist streaking into the zone for a partial break, and No. 14 in white converted to even the score at 2-2 through 40 minutes.
Both teams had their opportunities the rest of the way, with Saros turning away chance after chance for the Lightning as regulation wound down.
“Gosh, Juice played great,” O’Reilly said. “Juice gave us a chance. There were some unbelievable stops at key times in the game. They’ve got some great players that make really good plays out there, and he was there every time making that save. He was a huge reason we got a point tonight.”
The night almost ended perfectly for Nashville as Stamkos had a chance in tight in the extra session, but he was unable to convert. Shortly after that, Paul ended it.
From here, the Predators will get some rest after playing three games in four days before they host the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday, and Nashville will look to find extra points in the standings once more.
“I definitely don't think we started the game really well,” Stamkos said. “We were a little passive, and like I said, they’ve got some really good players that can make you look silly if you play passive. So, we came back. I still think we gave up too many quality chances, and that's not in our DNA, so we'll look to fix that. I thought Juice played unbelievable tonight and gave us a chance to get a point here on a [three games in four nights] situation. So, we'll take the point, get home and get some rest.”
Notes:
Prior to Monday’s game, the Preds reassigned defenseman Marc Del Gaizo to Milwaukee (AHL). Forwards Juuso Parssinen and Philip Tomasino were scratched for Nashville against the Lightning.
Earlier on Monday, Preds goaltender Juuse Saros was named the NHL’s Second Star of the Week.
The Predators will close out the month of October when they host the Edmonton Oilers on Halloween night at Bridgestone Arena.
