Kevin Fiala rescued the Nashville Predators in Game 2 of their series with the Winnipeg Jets.
Fiala scored in the second overtime Sunday to give the Preds a 5-4 win to tie the series at 1-1.;
Without the win, the Preds were looking at heading to Winnipeg down, 0-2.
“I’m very happy that we won,” Fiala said. “That’s all that matters. It was a huge game for us to tie it up 1-1. It’s very big for us.”
Mark Scheifele forced overtime when he struck for his second goal of the game with 1:05 left in regulation.
“Playoff hockey is fun,” Scheifele said. “It’s exciting. You’re going to win games, you’re going to lose games, you’re going to get down in games and you’re going to be up in games. There’s a lot of adversity that goes through a series and that’s the reason they’re best four out of seven. We leave this one behind us and focus on Tuesday.”
Pekka Rinne made 46 saves to get the win.
Dustin Byfuglien and Brandon Tanev scored for the Jets.
Ryan Johansen scored twice for Nashville.
“You focus on the little things,” Johansen said. “You don’t worry about the points or anything like that. You focus on the details as an individual that makes you the best player possible for your team and where you can help guys around you in their game and stuff. For me, it’s going out there and doing the little things all the time consistently well and putting myself in position to have success.”
Viktor Arvidsson and P.K. Subban also scored for the Predators.
“I think we worked hard,” Arvidsson said. “We just support each other and played in the [offensive] zone a lot. So I feel like that was a big part, and we got the pucks deep. Played a simple game and put pucks to the net, and that’s when we’re good.”
[WATCH: All Jets vs. Predators highlights | Complete Predators vs. Jets series coverage]
Connor Hellebuyck made 36 saves in the loss.
“It’s an important process for us to go through having lost an overtime game. Now we’ve got to rebound because all of the emotion that goes into tying it late, feeling good about that, losing in double overtime, now you’ve got to rebound,” Winnipeg head coach Paul Maurice said. “It’s something we have to deal with at some point, it’s tonight. We go back with a split. I don’t know that home ice has a huge advantage in terms of the matchups because they’re probably going to be pretty much the same. The benches are going to get run the same, but there will be a little bit more excitement when [Patrik Laine] rings one off the post.”
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