In Sunrise, Chris Driedger made 24 saves and the Florida Panthers earned a split of the two-game set with the Nashville Predators on Friday night, 2-1.
“[Driedger] was rock solid again tonight,” Florida head coach Joel Quenneville said. “Big save there late. He takes up a lot of net, very patient, poised, and rebounds seem to stick to him.”
Colton Sissons was the lone goal scorer for the Preds, and staked Nashville to a 1-0 lead in the first period.
“There were a number of learning lessons,” Sissons said. “Discipline has been a big factor, special teams and just finding a more consistent game throughout the night. We had some lulls in periods and actually got pretty sidetracked in some games by lack of discipline. It’s hard to keep momentum when you’re doing that all the time.”
The Panthers took the lead away from Nashville in the middle frame when Aleksander Barkov tied the game, and Carter Verhaeghe put Florida ahead.
“It’s huge,” Verhaeghe said. “The points here are huge. It [was] a bit of an uphill battle last night. We kind of blew that one a little bit. We had opportunities to close it out last night and we didn’t, so it’s nice to see the same kind of opportunity and we did it tonight.”
The Panthers are now 6-0-2 on the season.
“We did have a lot of pucks at the net, a lot of loose stuff,” Quenneville said. “They weren’t bouncing our way. Rinne had a good period against us like he did last night. We had some different looks in that second, obviously the finish was great with [Barkov’s] line. I thought we played really hard in the third. Very happy [with the] team win. Exciting for the guys. Basically we said this morning, ‘Let’s move past that, let’s get incentivized by it and now let’s go out and have our best game.'”
We’re working hard,” Verhaeghe said. “Last game we were doing a lot of things but just didn’t get rewarded. It’s nice to finally get rewarded tonight. It’s kind of nice, this whole team too, we’re clicking. If one guy is not going, other guys are going. It’s awesome. And the chemistry with me and [Barkov] too. He’s a great player. He’s so easy to play with. We click pretty well.”
The loss dropped Nashville to 5-6-0.
Pekka Rinne made 34 saves in the hard luck loss.
“I thought Pekka was very good,” Predators head coach John Hynes said. “He had an excellent game tonight. When you get good goaltending, it always brings energy to your team. Tonight he did his job, but we didn’t have enough of a team game to win the hockey game.”
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