In Nashville, the Predators’ Alexandre Carrier scored with a fraction of a second less than eight seconds left on the game clock on Saturday to snap a 1-1 tie with the New York Islanders.
“I’ll take it, for sure,” Carrier said. “Great forecheck by our forwards. They were on their [defensemen] and created the turnover, and then from behind the net they hit [Jeremy Lauzon]. He was nice enough to pass it to me and let me try it. Great bounce, but sometimes you’ve just got to put it on net and good things happen.”
Juuso Parssinen added an empty-net marker with one second left in the game for the 3-1 final.
Juuse Saros made 24 saves in the win.
The Predators moved to 24-18-1.
“This month is kind of the separation of where you’re at. It’s kind of like the Friday in golf,” Nashville coach Andrew Brunette said. “This is the part of the season where you’re slamming your trunk or you’re playing on Saturday. We’re in that moment right now.”
With a scoreless tie going past the midway point of the third period, the Isles’ Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored with eight minutes left in regulation.
“We played a pretty solid road game for most of it,” the Islanders’ Noah Dobson said. “There’s a lot of things to like, but we’ve got to manage the moments better, especially the last five minutes there. We’ve got to at least get that to overtime and get a point out of it. It’s disappointing.”
The Islanders dropped to 19-13-10.
“We turned the puck over and tried to go through the middle of the ice,” New York coach Lane Lambert said. “That’s a cardinal sin in our zone. We turned the puck over and they end up getting a shot, breaks a stick and alley-oops over. Just kind of a calamity of errors I guess.”
The Predators tied it, 1-1, three minutes later on a goal from Luke Evangelista from above the circle on the right side.
“We came out a couple times at home and just kind of laid a couple eggs,” Evangelista said. “We talk about it all the time. This has to be a hard building to come into and to play in. Tonight, it was a really tight game and it came right down to the wire, so to finally break the momentum and get a win was huge for us.”
Ilya Sorokin made 25 saves in the loss.
“I thought for the most part we managed the puck well,” the Islanders’ Kyle Palmieri said. “Just didn’t get the result. That’s a tough one.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.