by Fedor Svechkov scored his first NHL goal, but the Nashville Predators suffered their third straight 3-2 overtime loss to the Minnesota Wild on Saturday at the Xcel Energy Center.
Predators goaltender Juuse Saros, who also started Nashville’s first back-to-back Friday against the Tampa Bay Lightning, made 25 saves in the loss. The Predators’ offensive woes continued, as the loss marked the 14th game this season in which Nashville scored two goals or fewer. With the loss, Nashville now falls to 7-12-6 on the season.
How the Predators lined up against Minnesota
Forsberg-O’Reilly-Nyquist
Stamkos – Novak – Marchessault
Jankowski – Svechkov – Evangelist
L’Heureux – Sissons – Smith
Josi – Carrier
Skjei – Blankenburg
Wilsby – Schenn
Saros
Announcements
Extras: Del Gaizo, Pärssinen, McCarron, Lauzon*
*Forward Michael McCarron missed his fifth straight game since being placed on injured reserve with an upper-body injury. Jérémie Lauzon also suffers from a lower body injury.
Justus Annunen, acquired from the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday morning in a trade for Scott Wedgewood, traveled to Minnesota in time to back up Saros for the game.
Related: Avalanche Predators and Goalies trade as Scott Wedgewood heads to Colorado
Game summary
It took nearly 19 minutes and a flurry of shots from the Wild, but defenseman Declan Chisholm got Minnesota on the board with the first goal of the season. From the tie, he launched a shot that beat Saros and hit both goal posts before heading into the net to make it 1-0.
Svechkov had an answer less than a minute later, tying the score with his first NHL goal. Roman Josi set up the tic-tac-toe play from the blue line by feeding the puck to Luke Evangelista, who made a nice cross-ice pass to set up Svechkov for a one-timer from the faceoff circle to tie the game . at 1-1 before the first intermission.
The Predators got a power play opportunity less than two minutes into the second period when former Predators forward Yakov Trenin was called for tripping against Saros. On the power play, Ryan O’Reilly made a nice deflection in front of the net on a pass from Steven Stamkos to give the Predators a 2-1 lead.
The Wild tied it up with a power play goal at 8:24 of the period after Evangelista went to the box for hooking Marco Rossi. Kirill Kaprizov deflected Rossi’s shot to beat Saros and head into the intermission again with the score tied.
A scoreless third period sent the Predators into overtime for a third straight game after losing each of their previous two games to the Philadelphia Flyers and Tampa Bay, respectively, by a final score of 3-2 in overtime. Nashville would suffer the same fate against the Wild, as Jared Spurgeon buried Kaprizov’s feed 58 seconds into overtime for the 3-2 final.
Key takeaways
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With assists on goals from Svechkov and O’Reilly, Josi extended his point streak to five games. He has seven points (5 goals, 3 assists) during this period. According to NHL PR, Josi has recorded 108 games with multiple assists in his career – the second most among all defensemen since his NHL debut in 2011-12 and behind Erik Karlsson of the Pittsburgh Penguins (123).
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Rookie defenseman Adam Wilsby’s final shift of the second period lasted 3:43. The Wild managed just one shot on goal in that span.
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Less than 90 seconds into the match, defender Luke Schenn dropped his gloves with Marcus Foligno for their third fight of the season; he has already fought Tanner Jeannot of the Los Angeles Kings and Mark Kastelic of the Boston Bruins.
Following
The Predators begin a three-game Canadian road trip on Wednesday with a visit to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Puck drops at 6:30 p.m. CT and the game will be broadcast regionally on FanDuel Sports Network South and on ESPN+ for out-of-market customers in the United States.
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