The Nashville Predators had the Philadelphia Flyers in town for a contest on the night before Thanksgiving. As one of Broadway's busiest nights unfolded, the game was a busy affair for the Predators offense, despite not being their most successful outing.
There was a lineup shuffle for the Predators with Jeremey Lauzon being dubbed "week to week" with a lower body injury, and then Michael McCarron offically being placed on the IR with an upper body injury.
In their places Adam Wilsby made his NHL debut, and Nick Blankenberg made his Predators debut. Zachary L'Heureux is hurt and wearing a visor but is still managing to be agitating.
Nashville Predators with a lot of offensive zone pressure, but not much to show for it
During the first and second periods the Predators were on top of the Flyers, with the ice tilted towards the offensive end for the yellow and blue clad bombers. The first goal of the night went off early as Roman Josi was able to pot his fifth goal of the year at the 6:17 mark of the first period.
Alexandre Carrier notched his fifth assist of the season on Josi's strike. Josi's wrap around goal was pretty and got the crowd going early in the game. His end-to-end effort caught the Flyers in a bad line change and he was untouched in his attempt.
Scott Laughton tallied an equalizer off of a feed from Ryan Poehling later that period. A loose puck ended up on Poehling's stick, which he bumped to Laughton who fired quickly on net. Saros let the puck leak between him and the short side of the net, one that falls squarely into "bad goal" territory. Saros had a decent game outside of that, stopping 20 of 23 shots total for a .870 save percentege.
The third goal of the first period came off Ryan O'Reilly's stick. Nyquist won a board battle off of a Brady Skjei dump in behind the net and exchanged the puck with O'Reilly.
After a crafty backhand feed by Nyquist, O'Reilly made no mistake with a one-timer that found pay dirt. It's O'Reilly's fourth goal of the year, to match Nyquist's fourth assist, and Skjei gets his seventh assist off the dump in.
Flyers drive a stake into Preds fans right before Thanksgiving
That's where the score stayed until 11 seconds remaining in the third. The Flyers pulled their goalie for the extra man effort and Morgan Frost (3) tied the game off of feeds from Travis Sanheim (9) and Sean Couturier (7). Unfortunately this would not be the only late game lapse for the Predators.
In the overtime period, the Predators lost a faceoff in the Philadelphia end and a Rasmus Ristolainen (5) outlet pass gave Travis Konecny (13) enough space to make a play.
Josi played soft on him, and Filip Forsberg got beat back up the ice by Sean Couturier (6) who had Saros beat on his redirect attempt.
The Predators outshot the Flyers 27 to 23, had nearly a 20 percent advantage on the draws. They seemed to have the upper hand until Philadelphia entered desperation mode in the third period.
The Deserve to Win-O-Meter from MoneyPuck had the Predators at 58.8 percent deserving of the win, but the Flyers neutralized the Predators' offensive pressure by blocking 32 shots. Nashville didn't help itslef at all by also missing entirely on a lot of their shot attempts.
For instance, Jonathan Marchessault had 11 shot attempts but only put five of those on net. Josi also had 11 shot attempts, but only four were on net. A lot of missed chances to even make the goalie make the save.
While both teams lack an overall identity, they play much different styles. The Predators seems to be inclinded to wait and assume that their vast amount of talent will eventually just start working, whereas Philadelphia will either try to beat you over the head with breakneck paced play, or will grind your teeth to dust and sweep the ashes into the net.
It's hard to argue that the Predators are talented enough to win hockey games, and tonight's was a game they should have won. On paper they win on talent alone, but when talent doesn't execute at either end of the ice, bad stretches turn into bad months, bad months to bad halves and bad halves to bad seasons.