Leading 6-3 with less than two minutes left in regulation, the Nashville Predators surrendered three goals to the Los Angeles Kings who forced overtime with a goal from Jeff Carter at 19:26.
The Preds’ Roman Josi finally bailed Nashville out with a goal in extra time to save the club the embarrassment of losing a big lead and a game.
“I gave it to Filip (Filip Forsberg), and Filip made a real patient play,” Josi said. “He made a great play to me in a lot of space and lots of time. Good thing it went in. I was a little surprised getting that much space in OT. I just walked down the slot and tried to pick a corner.”
It was the Kings who finally found their offense in this game but still needed a miracle, or three, in the final two minutes on goals from Dwight King, Marian Gaborik and Carter.
Pekka Rinne got the win on 24 saves for the night.
“It was a good thing they didn’t have that one shot [in overtime],” Rinne said. “I didn’t have to make a save. I was [upset]. I was really disappointed. I couldn’t believe what happened at the end there. … Roman took care of business individually. It was a good effort, really nice goal. Big win for us. Big two points. Crucial time against a big team.”
But in a season of big scoring periods it was not all that surprising to see the Kings rally to tie.
“It was definitely not the ending we planned,” Josi said of the game Saturday. “If you’re up 6-3, a couple of minutes to go, you want to win that game in regulation. Good job by our team staying with it. Still, we’ve got to do a better job at the end there.”
The seven goals surrendered was not how the Kings wanted to start their big homestand.
“Anytime we are giving up seven goals, we are not playing the way we want to play,” Kings captain Dustin Brown said. “We have to figure it out individually and collectively. It’s pretty much the halfway point of the year. We’ve been saying we need to be more consistent, and we have to stop talking about being consistent and start being consistent.”
Martin Jones and Jonathan Quick faced 25 shots in total in the loss. Quick started for the Kings was pulled early.
“Both teams are good checking teams, but I think Nashville is a step ahead of us in all that,” Darryl Sutter said. “Not just tonight, but a step ahead of that because they all do it. Their defense is an elite defense.”
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