The Nashville Predators walked into Benchmark International Arena on Saturday, Sep. 27 with hopes of getting revenge on the Tampa Bay Lightning in the NHL preseason. After allowing three unanswered goals last Tuesday, Nashville hoped to regain their composure and put up a fight in sunny Tampa, FLA.
Nashville didn't start the game strong, allowing Lightning defender Darren Raddysh to wrist one past Juuse Saros five minutes into the game. Mitchell Chaffee opened the second period with a power play marker, setting the score to 2-0 in favor of Tampa.
Forward Ozzy Wiesblatt scored Nashville's lone goal 12 minutes into the second off of Fedor Svechkov's shot from the blueline.
Scoring remained absent for the rest of the second and majority of the third. Lightning Winger Brandon Hagel scored on the power play at the three-minute mark on a tip-in from Gage Goncalves. Two minutes later, Goncalves shot the puck in the empty net, ending the night off on a score of 4-1 for Tampa Bay.
Despite having an NHL-heavy roster, Nashville failed to keep up with Tampa's half NHL, half AHL lineup. However, the Preds did have their moments and it showed some pretty good signs for the team looking forward. Let's take a quick dive into the 3 takeaways you must get from Saturday's matchup.
Takeaway One: Nashville's Offense Looked Good, Despite Only Scoring Once
Sometimes in sports, the score doesn't say too much about how the game played out, and that's the case for this game. Nashville applied ample amounts of pressure in the offensive zone but just came across a tough netminder in Brandon Halverson. Halverson saved 28 of the Predators' 29 shots on goal.
There were multiple key instances where the offense just seemed to click. Nashville's top line of Filip Forsberg, Ryan O'Reilly, and Jonathan Marchessault is a prime example of this. Late in the first period, Forsberg made a cross-ice pass to Marchessault on the right side who had a prime scoring opportunity. The vision and execution are there but Halverson was on top of it.
Earlier in the period, Roman Josi took a swing at offense and swung the puck from the blueline to the crease, getting stopped by Halverson. Five seconds later, Adam Wilsby attempted the same move but again was shut down by the 6'5" goalie. It is nice to see the defense, especially the younger guys make moves like this when their offense is all twisted up. However, this can also be a trojan horse if not done correctly, which brings us to our next takeaway.
Takeaway Two: The Defense Looked Out of Place at Times
There were a handful of moments where Nashville just seemed out of position. The defense looked a bit lost in their own end—in their defense (pun unintended) Tampa's offense is pretty hard to calculate to begin with. Besides that, the Predators stepped out of shooting lanes and gave the Lightning some easy wristers.
On Tampa's first goal, Nashville failed to regain position in time to block Raddysh's wrister from the faceoff circle. Defenseman Jordan Oesterle almost stood in place, only turning his head towards the puck when it was hurdling at him. However, it's pretty hard to pay attention when there's a body lying on the floor directly at your feet so let's take some blame off of him for a minute.
The Lightning's second and third goals came about through careful positioning and prime capitalization. Chaffee scored his goal through taking advantage of a hole in Nashville's defense. Josi stepped out formation to put pressure on Anthony Cirelli, who passed the puck behind Josi to Chaffee. From there, he skated through the captain's former location to sneak one past Saros on his glove side.
As of late, Saros has experienced a few how-did-that-happen goals which has taken a toll on his goaltending numbers. Our final takeaway is exactly that.
Takeaway Three: Saros Had a Good Game but was Overshadowed by Lucky Shots
Chaffee's goal is an example of this lucky shooting. After he took a shot from his forehand, the puck bounced off of Saros' left pad and into the back of the net. If the puck had hit the pad in a different way, it would've been redirected away from the net and into the hands of a Nashville defender. It's plays like these that put a bad name on Saros.
In the 39 minutes he was in net for the Preds, he faced 13 shots, saving 11 of them. A lot of these shots were from close to mid-range, so his quick positioning and speed allowed him to swiftly knock the pucks lose. In the second period, Saros slid post-to-post in order to block a one-time attempt from Cirelli in which he promptly saves.
If Nashville's defense can find more ways to be there for Saros, he could return to his former frame from 2-3 years ago. I still believe Saros has what it takes to be that number-one, elite goalie for the Predators—all he needs is a solid defense. Hopefully they can bring it on this year.