Nashville Predators: How They Got to Game 7 With Winnipeg

Jets take home-ice advantage

Hard pill to swallow losing home-ice advantage in Game 1. That’s especially true considering how hard the Predators worked over the regular season to obtain the Presidents’ Trophy. This game set the tone that the Jets are as good as advertised. Most notably Connor Hellebuyck. Anyone who didn’t understand why he’s a Vezina Trophy finalist, understood after this game.

The biggest takeaway from Game 1 is the Predators must play their best brand of hockey. Additionally, Pekka Rinne is going to have to match Hellebuyck’s performance. He hasn’t done that every game, and it’s allowed the Jets to flat out look like the superior team at times.

Hellebuyck records 47 saves to open up the series. You tip your cap when this happens. The Predators actually had plenty of chances, and Hellebuyck was just better. A goaltender that’s locked in like that can neutralize any great offensive team. Without that mammoth performance from Hellebuyck, maybe the Predators aren’t in this situation. Maybe they’re preparing for Vegas. Now they have a major task at hand that might end their hopes of return to the Stanley Cup Final prematurely.

Final score ends up being 4-1, although the Predators dominate the faceoff circle and stay out of the penalty box. It was two positives to take from falling behind 1-0.

Kevin Fiala gets the game-winner

This series has so many turning points, and none are bigger than Kevin Fiala‘s double overtime goal to allow the Predators to avoid disaster. Dropping two at home to fall behind 2-0 in the series probably means we’re not having this conversation. Instead, we’re already thinking about the offseason and trying to answer questions about how it all went wrong.

The play that sets up this goal is pure beauty. Kyle Turris chips it up the wall to Craig Smith, who finds Fiala for the game-winner. It comes over five minutes into the second overtime, and the Predators comes out firing immediately on Hellebuyck. Rinne makes several key saves in the overtime frames to keep the Predators alive.

If the Predators do win a Stanley Cup, we’ll circle this game as one of the turning points. The fork in the road between an early exit and winning it all. The stats are mostly even, but the Jets do put up 50 shots on goal. Even though Rinne gives up four goals, you can chalk this up as a bounce-back game for him. He made critical saves at critical times.

Filip Forsberg has a strong game with three assists, showing he’s more than just a goal scorer. He can facilitate and create offensive chances for his teammates. Time to head to Winnipeg with the series knotted up.

Predators collapse in 2nd period

I can’t think of a more epic playoff game meltdown from the Predators than this game. That’s me going back to the early days when they weren’t expected to go very far. It still frustrates me, even though they’re weathering the storm. They shouldn’t have to if they could have avoided this massive brain cramp.

Ryan Ellis‘ quote after this game is what leaders do. They call out their team when there’s a need for one:

We just stopped playing, That was clear as day. I think you could see that. You can’t win hockey [games] when you stop playing midway through the second.”

It’s not what you want to hear, but at least there was accountability. These men are humans, not robots. They screw up, have lapses and are up against another great team. This quote was refreshing, and speaks volumes to Ellis’ leadership qualities.

As for the awful second period, it’s like a tidal wave. The Predators are cruising, and the Winnipeg fans are silent. My theory is the Predators just got comfortable. They took a deep breathe way too soon against a dangerous team. That dangerous team made them pay a hefty price for that. The crazy thing is, the Predators still nearly won it on a Viktor Arvidsson breakaway. Again, Hellybuyck was just better after a horrendous first period from his team.

When you take a loss like this, you wonder if the Predators have enough mental toughness to fight back in Game 4. As bad as this loss was, it still counts as just one loss. It’s first to four wins, not two. If the Predators kept that mentality and stayed confident, I was optimistic they could fight back for home-ice advantage.

Here comes the trap

I don’t care how the Predators win games. Yes, we all want entertaining hockey. However, the Predators are out there to win games at all costs. In this case, head coach Peter Laviolette employs a trap system that throws off the Jets. That’s extremely hard to do, and didn’t seem possible after Game 3.

Rinne also gets a shutout robbed thanks to a bad penalty from P.K. Subban. Outside of that, it’s a huge performance from both Rinne and Subban. Rinne gets 32 saves in another bounce-back game, and Subban nabs his third goal of the postseason.

There’s a lot of complaints, mainly from the opposition, about how boring this game ends up being. That may be the case, but the Predators win another must-win game to get up off the mat. The Jets have had numerous chances to deliver the knockout punch, and this was one of them.

Not sure if this is the way the Predators can win every game, but it’s a nice curveball to throw at times of desperation. Laviolette deserves a lot of credit for the Game 4 strategy. In what everyone expects as a high-scoring series, Game 4 ends up being the opposite. The Jets end up not being prepared, and the series is tied 2-2. Another turning point to a crazy series that’s only four games in.

Predators fall to the brink of elimination

This marks the worst performance by the Predators of the entire playoffs. Even worse than the Game 3 meltdown. At least in that game the Predators had flashes of dominance and let it slip away. This is a no-show from start to finish. No aggression or desperation for the moment.

Again, you have to give the Jets a ton of credit. They respond to adversity just as well as the Predators do. These two teams are so similar, which is why this is becoming such a memorable series.

Check out Subban’s guarantee after the Game 5 loss, per Brook Bratten:

It’s an uplifting guarantee, but still gut-wrenching to suddenly be useless in your home building. A place that’s always been tough for other team to win in. This is also by far Rinne’s rock bottom moment of the playoffs. You can defend him for some of the losses, but this one is largely on his shoulders. Six goals allowed on just 26 shots. The Juuse Saros pushers end up coming out again, which is ridiculous. The Predators need yet another must-win game, on the road in Canada.

Predators win another must-win game

The resiliency we know the Predators have erupts in Game 6 in Winnipeg. They follow-up their worst performance of the playoffs with their best. A complete domination from the Predators at the least likely time.

What ends up being so huge about this game is that the Predators finally protect a lead. They never let the Jets steal back any momentum to get on a roll. Never allow the fans to get back into the game. They place ends up staying quiet like it should have in Game 3.

How about Rinne shutting up the critics by posting a shutout on 34 shots faced. Forsberg also continues his march through the playoffs with two goals, giving him seven total. It’s a complete team effort, and takes very little stress. We all needed it after the first five games.

Next: The Night the Whiteout Went Dark

Arvidsson gets a crucial early goal to take some pressure off. If the Jets strike first, we all start sweating a lot more. It comes on a tip that’s reviewed after Roman Josi was just throwing a puck at the net. Helleybuyck finally ends up looking somewhat ordinary with his worst game of the series. The domination just continues after that as the Predators block a lot of shots to help out Rinne, and kill all four Jets power plays. We’re going to Game 7 back in Nashville.