Nashville Predators: Three Reasons to Keep Hope Alive for Game 6

Expect Saros to bounce back

I’ll go ahead and say it; Juuse Saros had his worst game of the series in Game 5. That’s not to say he was horrendous, but by his enormous standards, he was sub-par.

Saros now has the pressure on him to quickly get back into that mode that neutralizes the Canes power play and keeps the score somewhat low. The Predators aren’t winning this game tonight if they have to score more than three goals in my humble opinion.

That’s a lot to ask of Saros, but I know he’s capable of doing it because he’s shown it for over two months straight now. He’s fully earned my confidence as the new franchise goaltender to take over for Pekka Rinne.

Saros is the ultimate equalizer in this series. An ordinary goaltender in net for the Predators would probably mean a sweep would’ve already happened. That’s how much value I put into Saros on this team.

It does bear repeating, however, that this is also predicated on the Predators playing well in front of him in terms of not taking bad penalties and not getting caught out of position. I said earlier in this piece that I believe the key players of this team are going to put forth their best performances of this series, so I remain confident that Saros will be able to clearly locate the puck tonight.

As for tonight, we just need Saros to force this to a Game 7 where anything can happen. Just like on April 25, 2016 when Rinne held the Anaheim Ducks to just one goal on 27 shots to push it to a Game 7, in which the Predators would eventually win that series.