The white-hot Nashville Predators carry a 12-game point streak into Wednesday’s Central Division matchup with the host Winnipeg Jets.
The Predators collected 10 wins over that stretch while scoring an astonishing 49 goals.
Nashville’s six-game road winning streak ended 4-3 Sunday at Minnesota after an epic overtime that saw the Wild’s Matt Boldy score with Minnesota’s net empty. According to NHL rules, if a team pulls their goalie after regulation and loses, they automatically forfeit the overtime point, making that decision by Minnesota all that much more gutsy.
Ryan O’Reilly kept the point streak alive for Nashville when he forced overtime with a tally with only 2:02 left in the third period.
“It was a fun hockey game,” Predators coach Andrew Brunette said Sunday. “I loved our game … the resiliency of our group down one late and being able to score, I think, is building our pillars of our success here this year.”
Success has followed the Predators since returning from the All-Star break. It has pushed them into the first wild-card spot in the Western Conference and gained them a nine-point lead over St. Louis and Minnesota, who sit outside the playoff picture.
O’Reilly was asked if that takes away the sting of a lost point.
“It’s tough,” O’Reilly said. “We were right there. We battled back and we were doing good things and had some good chances, too … So, it’s disappointing. We wanted two, but you have to give them credit.”
Nashville faces a tough challenge against Winnipeg. The Jets have dominated the Central this season with a record of 16-4-1 against divisional rivals, but one of those four regulation losses did come at the hands of the Predators 3-2 back on Nov. 26. The Jets had won the earlier matchup 6-3 on Nov. 9.
While the Jets’ starting goaltender on Wednesday has not been made official, Nashville has yet to face top netminder Connor Hellebuyck, instead playing against back-up Laurent Brossoit in both games.
Hellebuyck is coming off his fourth shutout of the season as the Jets blanked the visiting Washington Capitals 3-0 on Monday. The Jets dominated throughout.
It was Hellebuyck’s 30th win of the year, hitting that mark for the fifth time of his career.
“He’s dialed in every day,” Jets forward Sean Monahan said of Hellebuyck. “He makes saves when we need him. He steps up in a big way. He’s a huge part of this team.”
The victory over Washington was a statement win, a serious response to a resounding 5-0 defeat in Vancouver on Saturday that coach Rick Bowness called “the worst game we have played in my two years here, by far.”
“We’re going to have bad nights,” Kyle Connor said Monday. “We’re going to lose games in the playoffs. It’s going to happen. Everything we do now is preparing for that … how we respond, how we regroup.”
Jets forward Gabriel Vilardi (lower body) is considered day-to-day. Predators blue-liner Dante Fabbro will miss two-to-three weeks with an upper-body injury, the team announced Tuesday. He was hurt in Sunday’s loss to the Wild.
–Field Level Media