Nashville Predators: Ranking the Biggest Wins of the 2020-21 Season
Nashville Predators get shutout over Blackhawks
Breaking into the top-five wins list of 2020-21 for the Nashville Predators is their April 3rd win over the Chicago Blackhawks. Anytime you can hold this rival to zero goals in a game it’s pretty special.
This game came at a time when the Predators were still riding a hot streak that made this particular win their ninth in the past 11 games. The playoff push was becoming a reality, and beating the Blackhawks was a must.
Juuse Saros was outstanding once again in this game by posting 41 saves, which was his second shutout of the season and 13th of his young career.
There was more excitement from this game thanks to Colton Sissons connecting on a penalty shot to give the Predators a 2-0 lead after drawing that penalty while the Predators were killing off a penalty.
I put this win on the list because the Predators had just lost to the Stars, another team in the playoff race, and couldn’t afford to drop two-straight against teams they were battling against for the fourth playoff spot. It was a huge response to their previous loss, and continued their domination over the Blackhawks this season.
Overtime thriller against the Panthers
This was early on in the season and we were already starting to see troubling signs from the Predators. They had just been beaten twice by the Tampa Bay Lightning and looking to avoid a long losing streak.
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This game was back-and-forth between the Predators and Panthers. We’ve become accustomed to that in this season series.
Eventually the Panthers would take a 5-3 lead and it looked over as the Panthers already had two power play goals and Saros had been pulled for Rinne.
Rinne would make all 12 saves on 12 shots to keep the Predators in it.
The comeback was on for the Predators as Roman Josi made it 5-4 with just over two minutes left in regulation. The team relentlessly didn’t give in and Matt Duchene, yeah that guy many people can’t stand, scored the equalizer on the power play with less than 60 seconds left on the clock.
Plenty of drama late in this one due to the Panthers having a failed challenge that led to the Predators getting a fortunate power play opportunity. They made the Panthers pay on the coaching mistake, and then overtime came.
That’s when Filip Forsberg would make the steal in the neutral zone and put the wicked wrister right past Sergei Bobrovsky to get the Predators their fifth win of the season. They had over 40 shots on goal in that wild game.
Predators respond after brutal collapse two days before
Great teams have to know how to flip the page and not let it happen again. The Predators were up against some enormous pressure in the rubber match of a three-game set with the Chicago Blackhawks, and this Friday night matchup was crucial.
The Predators had just blown a 4-1 lead in the third period to the Blackhawks just two days before to suffer their first loss of the season in the series. Fans were already freaking out that the Predators were screw it up again on Friday.
It wasn’t the most exciting win, but it was definitely one of the most important. It essentially pushed the Blackhawks pretty far out of playoff contention, and the Predators just simply took care of business.
It was a commendable defensive effort for the Predators as they held Chicago to under 30 shots on goal and committed just one penalty to help protect their goaltender.
This win closed out the season series with the Blachawks as the Predators went 7-0-1 against them. Too bad they couldn’t have held strong and went 8-for-8, but we’ll take 15 of 16 possible points in the series nonetheless.
How the playoff push started
Most of us had the Predators dead in the water heading into their March 15 tilt with the Tampa Bay Lightning. They had just lost rather embarrassingly to Tampa Bay in the game before to the score of 6-3, and the Predators were in a slump of losing six of their last seven games.
This was the time when I was actually worried the Predators might finish in last place in the division. I felt they were playing the worst hockey in the division and that even the Red Wings had a chance to pass them up.
But to the credit of the Predators, they didn’t fold. They didn’t pack it in on the season and they kept pushing. They got this gritty win over the Lightning thanks to 38 saves from Pekka Rinne and a four-point effort from Calle Jarnkrok.
The Predators were fortunate to face Curtis McElhinney over Andrei Vasilevskiy, but we won’t go there. A win is a win, and the Predators needed that one badly at the time to stop some of the bleeding.
There was no looking back after that. The Predators would go on to win 13 of their next 16 games and become one of the hottest teams in the NHL.
Tolvanen crushes the Stars in overtime
We won’t worry about the fact that it’s taken overtime or shootouts to beat the Stars in every win against them this season. I’m going to take those four wins over them and run with it, and hopefully add another one this Saturday to the collection.
This moment for Eeli Tolvanen was the single most exciting moment of the season so far for me. Another game that was highly physical and evenly-matched.
First off, I have to give some love to Calle Jarnkrok for getting the tying goal to make it 2-2 in the third period. It was his 11th goal of the season on a wrist shot to beat Anton Khudobin.
Overtime came as the teams as Dallas had already amassed 35 shots on Juuse Saros, and he had held strong to only surrender two goals.
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The overtime goal came thanks to Alexandre Carrier getting the play started to find Viktor Arvidsson, then Arvidsson made the gorgeous set-up to find Tolvanen skating down the middle. The rest is history as Tolvanen, with ice in his veins, scored on the backhand for what was his 9th goal of the season at the time.
For your enjoyment and to refresh your memory, here’s the Tolvanen goal that buried the Stars to another overtime loss:
Another massive win over the Stars, albeit in overtime, to strengthen their playoff chances. One more game left in this series on Saturday night, and it will take more heroics to get these two points.
If the Predators win on Saturday, it’ll no doubt be the new No.1 on this countdown of top wins of the 2020-21 season.