In Nashville, Connor Garland and Andrei Kuzmenko scored in the final 67 seconds of regulation on Tuesday night to pull the Vancouver Canucks into a 4-4 tie with the Predators, and force extra time.
The extra session solved nothing, and the Predators took a 5-4 win on penalty goals from Garland and Matt Duchene.
Juuse Saros made 36 saves in the Nashville win.
The Predators improved to 27-22-6, and are still on the edge of feeling the bite of the NHL trade deadline looming.
Nashville took a 2-0 lead on a first period strike from Cole Smith, and marker from Philip Tomasino in the middle frame.
“Obviously, it was nice to get that first one out of the way, and I think it was a big goal for our group and for our unit, especially,” said Tomasino, who was playing his fifth game this season. “I think we’ve had some good looks the last few games and haven’t been able to click. Obviously, great play by Parssinen to [feed] me there.”
Vancouver rallied with two goals, Kuzmenko scored his first of the night to trim the lead to 2-1, and Sheldon Dries tied it 2-2.
“We’ve seen that all year from us,” the Canucks’ Quinn Hughes said. “We don’t quit. It’s exciting to bring ourselves back in the game. Two goals with a minute and a half left just shows character, but also how guys want to win and are competitive. We’re not just going to lay down.”
The Canucks dropped to 22-30-5.
“We played a really good road game,” Vancouver forward J.T. Miller said. “A couple of breakdowns, but for the majority of the game I thought we outplayed them. A really solid [game], a good character comeback. Once you get past the end of regulation, it’s kind of a crapshoot from that point. We battled really hard tonight. Good character stuff.”
Nashville replied just 12 seconds later with a strike from Nino Niederreiter for a 3-2 advantage.
“Definitely happy we won the game, but it’s … we can’t go that far,” Niederreiter said. “We have to make sure we close the game out earlier. Overall, we’ve just got to be a lot better, but we found a way.”
In the third, Mikael Granlund scored to extend the Nashville lead to 4-2, ahead of the Vancouver rally.
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Collin Delia made 22 saves in the Vancouver loss.
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