In Nashville, the Columbus Blue Jackets continued their late season swirl with a 4-3 loss to the Predators, in the skills competition, on Saturday night.
The skills portion of the evening’s events went eight rounds.
Columbus has lost eight straight in the skid.
“I’m not worried about our strength or our effort,” Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella said. “Win or lose, I just trust the team that way. They know what’s going on. They’ve handled this situation very well. Have we gotten the total result in the past couple weeks? No. But we still scratch away. Get a point here, a point there.”
Juuse Saros made 40 saves for the Preds in the win.
Rocco Grimaldi ended the tension in the skills with the deciding goal.
“It’s been a grind,” said Nashville forward Colton Sissons, who tied it 3-3 at 18:57 of the second period when he redirected a shot from Forsberg. “Obviously it’s been a challenging year for everyone, on personal notes and in general as a team. But we’re right there in the hunt at this time of year, and honestly it doesn’t get much better than that.”
Ryan Johansen and Mikael Granlund staked the Predators to a 2-0 lead i the game.
“I don’t think we’re going to be looking back at this game in a month,” Johansen said. “All we’re going to look at is the points we got, and we’ll take that and move forward.”
Columbus responded with goals from Boone Jenner, Eric Robinson and Emil Bemstrom for a 3-2 lead.
“It’s definitely frustrating,” Robinson said. “We battled hard today to tie the game, and it was a hard-fought third period from both teams. Not to get the result in overtime or a shootout, yeah it stings a little bit, but take the point and move on to the next one.”
Colton Sissons scored with 1:03 left in regulation to get the game to extra time ahead of the skills event.
“I thought it was a gutsy effort all the way through,” Nashville’s Fillip Forsberg said. “I thought the first period was really good. The second period was not so good, but then in the third we kind of bounced back again. They played well also, but we found a way to win.”
[WATCH: All Blue Jackets vs. Predators highlights]
Elvis Merzlikins made 33 saves in the loss.
“I know I keep getting asked the question, ‘How about the mindset of the team? Are they going to get down?’ This team won’t get down,” Tortorella said. “That’s one thing I fully trust is they’re together and they’ll keep on playing and try to find a way.”
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