Predators rout Sharks, push streak to 15 Preds are 13-0-2 in last 15 games

Posted on by

In Nashville, the Predators trailed the visiting San Jose Sharks, 2-1, midway through the game on Tuesday night.

In response, the Preds reeled off seven unanswered goals for an 8-2 win. The victory pushes the Nashville point streak to 14 games, tying a franchise record.

Juuse Saros made 18 saves in the win.

Nashville moved to 40-25-4

Roman Josi scored at 11:18 of the opening stanza for a 1-0 lead to the Predators, scoring off a shot from the point.

“The confidence is high,” Josi said. “We talked about it before the game. We’re very grateful for this opportunity to have this point streak. You can’t take it for granted. There’s a lot of work that we’ve put in to get to this point, and obviously we want to keep it going as long as we can. We’re realizing as a group what made us get here and the way we’ve played to get to this point.”

Mikael Granlund  tied it it , 1-1, for the Sharks at 17:18, scoring off a writers form the  right circle.

“We were just not hard enough,” Granlund said. “We were not defending hard enough. And in the NHL, when you’re not battling hard enough, that’s how it looks. That’s a shame.”

Mario Ferraro scored at 5:46 of the middle frame for a 2-1 lead to San Jose.

The Sharks dropped to 16-45-7, and are 1-12-2  over their last 15 games.

“You’re up 2-1 with 10 minutes left in the second period, and then you get this result,” San Jose coach David Quinn said. “It’s really been the story of our season. We can’t sustain successful stretches, and our bad is too bad. And that’s what you saw tonight. When our bad is bad, we look like we did tonight. As much as we’ve got to be better, we’ve got to make sure our bad isn’t as bad as tonight was.”

From there it was all Nashville.

The Predators’ Jason Zucker scored midway through the second for a game, 2-2.

“It was good to come out in the second and get that tying goal,” Zucker said. “I felt like we just turned the page and started playing our game after that.”

Michael McCarron  hit the first of a double at 15:26 for a 3-2 lead to the Preds.

Luke Evangelista stretched the advantage to 4-2 at 17:50, scoring from the slot.

“They’ve got it going on right now,” Predators coach Andrew Brunette said of Evangelista and forward Tommy Novak. “They’re skating as good as they’ve skated all year, and they have the capabilities of making special plays. You talk about going on a little bit of a run here. I think they get overlooked. They’re really kicking in that secondary scoring that maybe we’ve missed most of the year.”

In the third period,McCarron collected his double at 10:35  for a 5-2 lead, scoring from the left circle.
“We kill other teams’ will by the third period with the way we play,” McCarron said. “Just do the right things and as a result, you can see in the third period, teams are getting tired. They don’t want to keep going back for pucks.”It just got worse for the Sharks after that.

Mark Jankowski ballooned the lead to to 6-2 at 14:13.

Filip Forsberg piled on when he scored 30 seconds later for a 7-2 lead.

Tommy Novak ended the rout with a strike at 16:16 for the 8-2 final.

Magnus Chrona made 32 saves in the loss.