In a furious 3rd period comeback, or relentless as they like to say, the Nashville Predators officially punched their ticket to the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Predators were stunned by the Jets in the first period giving up three quick goals and falling behind 3-1. The game was in danger of falling out of reach quickly, and the Predators having to wait at least one more day to officially clinch a playoff berth.
The slogan for this team since the 18-game point streak began and now is plastered everywhere is "relentless", and that's exactly how you should characterize the second and third periods.
The Predators wouldn't stop coming at the Jets in the second period, but a locked-in Connor Hellebuyck was doing his best Vezina Trophy performance for the voters and it appeared that Nashville was about to be victims of near-perfect goaltending.
Over seven minutes into the third period, the Predators were still grinding away trying to at least get one back and make it interesting. Team like to pull their goalie when they're down two goals right around the time when Spencer Stastney was able to get in close on Hellebuyck and score his second career NHL goal.
NO WORDS pic.twitter.com/oOT4o3Ay7J
— Nashville Predators (@PredsNHL) April 10, 2024
The Predators went on to lose in overtime to the Jets, but managing the point was obviously the biggest obective. Now the team can focus on resting some players who might be dinged up and finetuning some parts of their game that will need to be better to win a seven-game series.
Let's look at my three main reasons why the Nashville Predators are way ahead of the schedule in year 1 of Andrew Brunette.