Before anyone cut into their Thanksgiving turkey the Nashville Predators fell 3-2 in overtime against the Philadelphia Flyers on Wednesday evening.
“I think we fell asleep a little bit, didn’t love us through the neutral zone,” head coach Andrew Brunette said about the Flyers tying the game in regulation.
“We talked about five on six, they’re pretty dangerous off the rush & we kind of fell asleep & gave them an easy goal.”
Nashville & Philadelphia got off to a good start. One early chance came from Gus Nyquist after he fired a shot at Aleksei Kolosov that missed the net & hit off the back wall & rolled to the near post. Nyquist was unable to bury the loose puck.
“I thought we did a good job all the throughout the game,” Nyquist said. “We got a couple of ticks on that last one, it’s kind of a crazy bounce, sports sometimes.”
Then 5:29 into the contest Luke Evangelista & Ryan Poehling were called for offsetting penalties. It was during the four-on-four play when Nashville struck first.
Captain Roman Josi rushed up the ice beating Emil Andrae on the left side breaking in. Josi went for the wrap-around & his shot was met by Travis Sanheim’s skate which deflected the puck past Kolosov to make it 1-0.
Josi using the Flyers skate to score is just top tier 🤌 pic.twitter.com/wI7zD2IF5u
— Nashville Predators (@PredsNHL) November 28, 2024
The Flyers evened it up six minutes later in the first stanza with an unsuspecting quick shot from Scott Laughton to the right of Saros. Laughton’s shot squeezed past Saros’ blocker to make it 1-1 after Alex Carrier lost a puck battle to Poehling in the corner.
Before the first period came to a close Ryan O’Reilly ended his 13-game drought to notch his first goal in November. Nyquist fed his centerman a quick backhanded pass as Nashville took a 2-1 lead into the locker room.
Ryan O’Reilly has not seen a goal drought like the one he ended tonight since 2016. That year he had his longest drought spanning 24 games.
While going through his worst streak he had 18 assists playing with the Sabres.
— Nick Kieser🏒 (@KieserNick) November 28, 2024
“Good offensive zone shift, winning a lot of battles & finding a little soft spot. Great job there by O’Reilly. All three guys were working tight & Forsberg was right there as well, it was good,” Nyquist said.
The second period got off to an ideal start for the Predators as forward Matvei Michkov was assessed a roughing penalty. It helped the Predators go on a run of approximately three minutes of offensive zone time firing six shots on net.
As the second frame reached the final four minutes Jonathan Marchessault & Steven Stamkos found themselves on a odd-man rush. The two traded passes before the play was broken up with no shot on net.
Neither side found the back of the net in the second period & the Predators could only afford three additional shots after the quick flurry of pucks that found Kolosov from 18:33 to 16:01.
The chess match between the Flyers & Predators came down to the final few minutes as Kolosov vacated his net for the extra attacker to come on. With 11.4 seconds remaining it was Morgan Frost who evened it up 2-2 to force overtime.
“It’s a little bit of the same old story this year. You feel good about it, we haven’t been consistent enough to back it up next game & like I said the Devil was in the details in the last few minutes, we made some big mistakes,” Brunette said.
Then 2:31 into the extra frame of play the Flyers captain Sean Couturier was the hero for the Flyers scoring his seventh career overtime game-winner.
“We’re searching. Confidence is a funny thing in this game, one thing I do know is when you get opportunities sooner rather than later they’ll go in,” Brunette said. “A lot of times when they go in they come in bunches. We’ve been erratic in that situation so It’s hard to say it’s coming.”
Notes
Defensemen Adam Wilsby & Nick Blankenburg made their debuts with the Predators against the Flyers. Wilsby skated in his first career game after being drafted 101st overall in the 2020 draft.
Blankenburg was a free agent signing over the offseason who appeared in 55 games with the Columbus Blue Jackets over the last three seasons. He played for the University of Michigan & was an undrafted free agent signing by the Blue Jackets in April of 2022.
Forward Michael McCarron was placed on the injured reserve on Wednesday with an upper-body injury & defenseman Jeremy Lauzon was announced to be week-to-week with a lower-body injury.
Up Next
Nashville has Thanksgiving off from any game action but is back on the ice on Friday against the Tampa Bay Lightning. Defenseman Ryan McDonagh makes his return to Nashville after being dealt back to Tampa Bay this summer.
Stay tuned for the action as Pete Weber & Jay More have the call back in Nashville against the Lightning.
Then the Predators are up in Minnesota on Saturday to take on former head coach John Hynes & the Wild. Max Herz & Hal Gill will be on the call for the quick trip up to the State of Hockey.
Follow Nick Kieser on Twitter/X: @KieserNick
Photos courtesy of the Nashville Predators
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