The Nashville Predators staged a four-goal comeback against the St. Louis Blues Monday at Bridgestone Arena, winning 6-5. Nashville recorded its second four-goal comeback in franchise history, per NHL PR.
Roman Josi recorded four assists; Ryan O'Reilly, Steven Stamkos scored two; Luke Evangelista tallied three points.
"We were asleep there for the first half of the game and then Big Juice came in. He made some unbelievable saves, and you get one and you get another one quick and then there's some life, and the crowd gets into it...We fed off it and then you can see the snowball keep rolling in your direction and give our guys credit. We never quit, but crazy game."Steven Stamkos, per Predators YT
Jake Neighbours gave St. Louis [20-27-9] the early lead at 15:07 off a tipped shot from Justin Faulk.
Nashville [26-23-6] capitalized on their first power play attempt at 10:44 with a tipped shot of their own from O'Reilly.
The Blues made it 2-1 with a power play marker from Pavel Buchnevich at 5:36, finishing off first period scoring.
Buchnevich continued the pressure with his second of the night 45 seconds into the period. St. Louis wouldn't slow down as Philip Broberg scored one at 16:37 and Colton Parayko scoring his first of the year 32 seconds later to make it 5-1.
Head Coach Andrew Brunette made the decision to pull Juuse Saros and send Justus Annunen out for the rest of the game following the Blues' fifth tally.
Michael McCarron redirected a shot from Michael Bunting at 8:25 for Nashville's second goal of the night. Forsberg followed up with his 23rd of the year at 6:11, putting the game within two at second intermission.
"I think after it was 5-3 and we had some great chances, a flurry at the end of the period...it was just McCarron, Smith, Bunting, those guys tonight led the charge. It's contagious and sometimes the other guys, [it] takes them a while, myself included tonight, to get going a little bit. You want to do anything to help your team win, but there was a belief in that second period of 'let's get the next goal.'"Steven Stamkos
O'Reilly netted his second at 17:58 after scoring on his own rebound set up by Justin Barron, who now has five assists on the year.
Stamkos scored the equalizer off a wraparound shot at 12:46, which was deflected by Parayko's skate and into the back of the net. Josi now has nine career games with four or more points with his fourth assist on the play.
Stamkos carried on and scored the game-winning goal at 9:37 after crashing the net, sneaking one past Blues goalie Joel Hofer. Per NHL PR, he surpassed Dino Ciccarelli for 20th on the all-time goals list with his 608th and 609th career goals.
Annunen finished off the game with some crucial saves as he stopped all 13 shots he faced as his team won 6-5. Nothing but pure energy in Bridgestone Arena as the Predators are now within two points of a wildcard spot in the Western Conference.
"It was amazing. Every TV timeout, everybody's standing up...It's like you're sitting on the bench, and you get that extra energy, and you come out and there's no other choice. You're going to be flying. The crowd definitely pushed us to this win."Roman Josi, per Predators YT
The Predators will continue with the wild encounters as they take on the Minnesota Wild Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. CST. It will be the final home game for Nashville before the Olympic break.
"There's been other times here that the roof was blown off, but that was probably as good as I've seen [the crowd] in recent memory. Kudos to them for hanging in. I'm glad we gave them something to cheer about as the game went on."Andrew Brunette, per Brooks Bratten