Last week was a big one for the Nashville Predators.
Thursday, they retired the No. 35 jersey of goaltender Pekka Rinne, the first player in franchise history so honored.
Saturday, they played host to the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning in the NHL’s Stadium Series before a sellout crowd of 68,619 outdoors at Nissan Stadium, home of the NFL’s Tennessee Titans.
The Lightning spoiled the party, defeating Nashville 3-2.
“Obviously, we wanted to send people over to Broadway happy, and now I guess a couple will be, at least the Lightning fans,” Predators forward Filip Forsberg said. “But it was a great atmosphere. I thought the game was a hard-fought game all the way to the end. Two power-play goals each, the one 5-on-5 goal for them was obviously the decider.”
The Predators will return to more-routine NHL action Wednesday when they visit Seattle to open a two-game trip.
Forsberg and Tanner Jeannot scored Saturday for the Predators, who had a two-game winning streak snapped. It was Jeannot’s 18th goal of the season, which tied him with Toronto’s Michael Bunting for the most among NHL rookies.
“It was incredible,” Jeannot said of giving the Predators a 1-0 lead outdoors. “It was good to pot one and have the boys get all excited for that and get the crowd into it.”
Not that the Nashville fans needed much help.
“It was pretty unbelievable,” Predators captain Roman Josi said. “It was surreal coming out of the locker room, seeing a full stadium and our fans, I mean it’s unbelievable every time there’s something going on here, they show up and the support is unbelievable.
“We wanted to win this game so bad for the fans, so that stings obviously that we couldn’t get a win for them. But we’re just very grateful for our fans.”
The Kraken have also enjoyed plenty of support in their expansion season in a spanking new arena, but that might be fading a bit with the team mired in a seven-game skid (0-6-1).
The latest loss came Monday in San Jose, 3-1, even though they outshot the Sharks 40-24.
“We could have done a lot of things right,” Seattle goalie Philipp Grubauer said. “It was just unfortunate bounces that cost us the game. You know, you can’t control those bounces and just sometimes that’s the way I think the season has been going so far.”
The Kraken had a goal disallowed by video review.
“We got no reward for our effort tonight,” Kraken coach Dave Haskstol said. “So, those are things that we have to handle and overcome. I thought we lost our momentum after the second goal against and we didn’t really get it going again in the second period after that.”
This will be the third meeting between the teams, with the visitors winning both matchups.
The Kraken earned their first victory in franchise history on Oct. 14 with a 4-3 decision in Nashville as Brandon Tanev scored twice. Tanev has since undergone season-ending knee surgery, and last week the Kraken placed leading scorer Jared McCann on injured reserve.
The Predators won 4-2 on their first trip to Seattle on Jan. 25. They head down to San Jose for a Saturday game before returning to Nashville to play five of seven at home.
–Field Level Media