In Nashville, Tampa Bay’s Steven Stamkos scored midway through extra time on Saturday to help the Lightning down the Predators, 3-2, on Saturday.
“It was one of those games where both goaltenders were playing really well,” said Stamkos. “We had some really good chances early in the game, their guy made some good saves, [Vasilevskiy] made some big saves. … Just create an opportunity in overtime. If you get a power play, you want to bury it. We did that. It was a just a good character win for our group.”
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 30 saves in the Tampa win, their fourth straight.
The Lightning, improved to 11-6-1.
Forsberg and Nino Niederreiter were the Nashville strikers.
“At the end of the day, you’re that close to getting two points against a really good team,” Forsberg said. “I thought we battled hard. It feels like we lost a point, but at the same time, I feel like our effort was solid. At this point of the season, we’ve got to take those things too.”
Tampa needed a goal from Alex Killorn in the 17th minute of the third period to force the extra session.
“You just can’t force it,” Killorn said. “[Saros] made a ton of great saves. He was really good for them tonight. Once we got one … it was just continue, continue, continue. If he’s going to make that many saves the entire game, good on him, but we were able to get a couple in at the end.”
Nikita Kucherov’s power play goal in the second period tied the game, 1-1.
“[Kucherov] was awesome tonight,” Killorn said. “That goal, him going end to end, scoring. On my goal, he makes an unbelievable play off the wall. Then he gets the game-winning assist to Stamkos. He was definitely our best player tonight.”
Juuse Saros made 36 saves in the Preds loss.
“It was nice to see [Niederreiter] put the puck in the net,” Predators coach John Hynes said. “We want to continue to get that line going. Tonight was another opportunity where they got on the scoreboard. That’s important. You’ve got to get production throughout your lineup, but it was nice to see them get rewarded for the hard work they put in.”
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