In Brooklyn Monday night, the Predators’ Ryan Johansen struck for a Nashville goal with 42 seconds left in regulation to force extra time with the New York Islanders.
With just a minute left in the overtime, Roman Josi gave Nashville a 5-4 win to complete the rally.
The Predators trailed 4-2 in the middle frame before scoring three straight goals for the win.
Callie Jarnkrok got the rally started late n the second period with his 12th goal of the season.
Johansen’s goal came with the the extra attacker on the ice and open net.
“You’ve just got to believe,” Johansen said. “Whenever you’re playing a good team, you know they’re never out of the game, and that’s how we feel our opponents look at us and that’s how we look at each other in this room. We keep sticking to our game plan.
“It’s a game of mistakes, and there are a lot of good players in this league that will make it challenging every night, but with our group and the way we stick to our game plan and just keep coming after teams, there is a big belief in here that we can always get the job done.”
Pekka Rinne made 24 saves to pick up the win.
“We left a couple of point-blank chances open in front of the net, so defensively, there are some things we could have been better at,” Predators head coach Peter Laviolette said after the game. ” But at the end of the day, when that game is hanging on at 4-3 and he (Rinne) made two, three, four or maybe five big saves, that gave us an opportunity to hang in there and get to that two-minute point where we could pull the goalie and ultimately score the goal.”
John Tavares, Nick Leddy, Ryan Pulock, and Casey Cizikas scored for the Isles in the loss.
“We didn’t deserve it from our first two (periods),” Islanders head coach Doug Weight said. “We had the lead, but we’re turning pucks over. They have to look at themselves. Thirty-seven shots after two periods… how many of them were from the blue line that hit (Halak) right in the stomach? To me, physically, that means you’re not in the shot lane. We don’t get those through; they block them.
“We’re talking a big game about being aggressive and block shots, but we’re not doing it, and that’s kind of what our message was. We want to sprint out at those D and not give them time. We were just on our heels and not in shot lanes and the D were soft. They had 10, 12 shot tips. They had zero in the third, and we were aggressive and mad. It was our best period in a long time.”
Kevin Fiala scored twice in the first period to give the Preds an early 2-1 lead.
“(The third period) was probably one of our better periods defensive-wise,” Pulock said. “We never gave up much, and then, obviously, when they get the extra guy out there, there’s that extra option.”
[WATCH:Â All Predators vs. Islanders highlights]
Jaroslav Halak made 42 saves in taking the loss.
“I thought we played a really good third period. We did everything we wanted to; we got pucks in deep, we didn’t turn anything over, we played a solid third. It’s just a tough ending,” Cizikas said after the loss.
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