Nashville Predators: Stars Come Out For Game 4, Predators Don’t

The Nashville Predators may still be wondering when Game 4 is going to take place. The Dallas Stars knocked them so silly in the first period they might not know where they are.

I hate saying any game in the postseason is “must-win”. Every game at this point of the year is tremendously important. Even if a team is up 3-0 in a series, a win in Game 4 helps conserve energy for later rounds. If the series is tied at three, or the other team has three wins, well, duh, it’s a must-win game. So you’re just stretching for things to say.

With that being said, one of these teams came out on Wednesday night acting like it was a “must-win game”. Unfortunately for most of you reading this, that team was not the Nashville Predators. The Dallas Stars pulled out all the stops to tie the series at two & salvage a split at American Airlines Center.

First Period Trouble

Anything that could have gone wrong for the Predators went wrong in the first period. The Dallas Stars hadn’t scored a single first period goal in the first three games, so one might say that they were due. The Predators gave them plenty of help though.

To be specific, Mattias Ekholm gave the Stars plenty of help. He had two high-sticking penalties in the first period, giving him a total of five penalties in this series. His two penalties led to two goals, and a Filip Forsberg delay of game penalty gave the Stars three power play goals in the first period. Add in one the Stars managed to get at even strength, and the Nashville Predators were down four goals after one period for the first time in 2018-19.

Pekka Rinne was pulled after the fourth goal at 13:45. He wasn’t great on this evening, but he got less than zero help from guys like Ekholm that couldn’t defend or stay out of the penalty box. Juuse Saros came in, which was cool because we got to see his gold pads. Pads like that have to

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make a postseason appearance or two.

Hopefully not too many. A troubling trend has emerged surrounding the performance of Pekka Rinne during the last two postseasons. He either plays really well, or gets overwhelmed & pulled long before the game is over. There’s very little in-between with postseason Rinne. If you can’t count on some level of consistency from your team’s best player, there’s little chance you’re advancing too far.

Dallas outshot Nashville 11-10 in this period, if you’re scoring at home or even if you’re alone.

A Largely Uneventful Second Period & Third Period

The only drama left for the final two periods of this one was if Stars goalie Ben Bishop could keep a clean sheet. The Stars added a goal in the second period, the second of the evening for one Roope Hintz. Pretty cool name, right?

Roman Josi finally got Nashville on the scoreboard with 11:49 left in the third period. Ryan Johansen & Ryan Ellis helped out.

That was your Predators highlight for the evening. Dallas wins 5-1 and we head back to Nashville on Saturday night tied at two games apiece.

The bright side? It can’t get much worse than this. Maybe the Nashville Predators can equal this performance at a later date. It’s hard to imagine this team, or any other team, playing much worse than the Predators did on this Wednesday in Texas.

Next Game

The Predators & Stars will return to Nashville on Saturday night for a pivotal Game 5. NBC will provide national coverage at 3:00 PM ET/2:00 PM CT. You can mute their announcers and tune in to Pete Weber on 102.5 The Game or the NHL app!