It all comes down to one more point for the Nashville Predators. After a 5-10-0 start to the campaign, this team is on the cusp of a trip to the postseason for the 9th time in the last 10 years.
Nashville is one of eight teams that have made the playoffs at least 8 times in the last 10 years. Entering this postseason the other Central Divisional teams that have done so are the Minnesota Wild and St. Louis Blues.
Over the weekend St. Louis prevented the Predators from clinching a playoff berth. The Blues picked up three points after an overtime loss in San Jose and picked up a shootout win in Anaheim on Sunday.
On the flip side, the Predators had a tough back-to-back series too picking up two points.
New York Islanders goaltender Semyon Varlamov shut the door on Nashville making 41 saves for his 41st career shutout in a 2-0 win. The real kicker was how well the Islanders played defensively in front of him.
Nashville had 33 of their shots blocked––the second most in team history––to try and pick up a win over a desperate Islanders team.
The Islanders tied a franchise high in blocked shots for the third time since the statistic began to be tracked in 2005. Varlamov has now played in two of those instances.
On Sunday the Predators were down 2-1 with eight minutes to play and then Devils defenseman Simon Nemec took a delay of game penalty batting a puck mid-air out of play.
In his 100th NHL game forward Luke Evangelista scored at 12:45 during the powerplay to even the score 2-2. That was also Evangelista’s 50th career point, perhaps his most important one so far with Nashville.
“I’m always a big believer that if you get chances and you’re around the net it’ll go in sooner rather than later,” head coach Andrew Brunette said of Evangelista’s goal. “You start second-guessing yourself there in the third period when we’ve had so many looks and we weren’t able to capitalize on it. If you keep sticking to what we do, we’re going to get our looks and something good will happen.”
Brunette went on to say he’s been a big fan of Evangelista’s poise this year in his first full NHL campaign. The skating and patience have been the biggest parts of his game that have allowed him to have success at the highest levels and now he’s reaping the benefits in Nashville.
“He has a little moxy to his game, a lot of patience with the puck,” Brunette said. “He sees the ice as good as anybody, very creative. He’s been skating better as the season has gone on, and his pace has improved. He’s a big game player and he showed it tonight with that really good poise on the game-tying goal.”
Ryan O’Reilly sealed the deal in the second round of the shootout against Jake Allen. Still at 100% shooting on three attempts this season, O’Reilly may finish the season with a perfect record in that category for the first time in his career.
The punches and counter punches from the weekend have put the Predators right where Brunette wanted to see his team during this time of the season. Nashville has taken it one game at a time and bought into being relentless, it may have taken most of the season but here they are.
After a rough beginning to Brunette’s first season as head coach the Predators have responded with the NHL’s 4th-best record of 40-19-4 while squeezing in a franchise-best 18-game point streak from Feb. 17 to March 26.
Tuesday night all they need is a point against Central Division foe Winnipeg to clinch a playoff spot.
Follow Nick Kieser on Twitter/X: @KieserNick
Photos courtesy of Nashville Predators
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