Juuse Saros has been nothing short of an elite netminder this season for the Nashville Predators. The Finnish goalie has made 102 saves in his last two games.
Saros currently ranks 9th in total wins (15) this season and boasts the NHL’s 5th-best save percentage (.921%) with a minimum of 25 games played and is pitching another Vezina-caliber type campaign.
Since Dec. 1 Saros has a 7-4-3 record while doing his best to keep the Predator’s head above the water treading right underneath a wild card spot.
Nashville is 7-1-2 in its last 10 games and is 3-0 on the current road swing before facing the Maple Leafs. Saros kicked off the trip making history by stopping the third most shots (64) by an NHL goalie versus the Carolina Hurricanes on Jan. 5.
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“He’s playing really well, I think the game in Carolina was a little different, we usually don’t give up that many shots,” head coach John Hynes said of Saros after the 3-0 shutout in Ottawa.
Now Nashville is one point back of that playoff spot as of Jan. 10.
Since Dec. 1 the Predators are the NHL’s 13th-best team with a 9-5-4 record. To go along with those nine wins the Predators have the sixth-ranked powerplay converting 27.6% of the time since Dec. 19.
For comparison, Nashville went 10-9-2 through its first 21 games and had the sixth-worst power play (16.3%) in the NHL.
Saros’ teammates have also not been the best benefactors in terms of staying out of the penalty box.
Nashville is 13th in the NHL with 167 penalties and has spent an average of 10:33 in the sin bin per game through 39 games played.
Predators defenseman Jeremy Lauzon committed four penalties alone against the Senators yet Nashville walked away with its first shutout of the season.
“Yea, they played a massive game tonight,” Lauzon said after getting eight penalty minutes Monday. “The penalty kill and really saved my ass there. I probably got to buy them a nice little bottle of wine later this week.”
Saros is two shots away from the most powerplay saves (158) in the NHL this season. Additionally, he’s allowed 20 powerplay goals this season with a .888 save percentage.
Currently, there are two goalies in a playoff spot on their respective teams that have allowed 20 goals or more short-handed this season, those netminders being Martin Jones and Stuart Skinner.
Saros is also third in the NHL in total even-strength saves (732) this season with only John Gibson and Connor Hellebuyck in front of him.
The workload doesn’t end there for Saros. He leads the NHL as of Jan. 10 in total shots faced with 997. He’ll be the first goalie this season during Wednesday’s game in Toronto to reach 1,000 shots faced. He leads the league in total saves as well (918).
Juuse now has 129 career wins. He’s 7th among Finnish-born goalies. https://t.co/nU0swl2lr0
— Nick Kieser 🏒 (@KieserNick) January 10, 2023
As of now, Saros appears to be the unanimous savior of the Predators right now. Nashville is over 10 minutes of penalty minutes per game (6th overall) and has the third most majors (18) this season.
Perhaps the powerplay can maintain its pace to help Saros out for the remaining 43 games. Albeit, the powerplay is 8-for-29 in their last 10 games.
Sitting one point out of the playoffs and looking in may not feel as daunting now, but it’ll come down to consistency for Nashville as the next nine of 15 games are against current playoff teams.