Nashville @ Vegas preview
T-Mobile Arena
Last Meeting ( Apr 4, 2023 ) Vegas 2, Nashville 3
The Nashville Predators will put a seven-game road point streak on the line when they open a three-game western trip against the defending Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights on Monday afternoon in Las Vegas.
Nashville, which holds the top wild-card spot in the Western Conference with 49 points, has won six of the seven games during that point streak with the only blip a 5-4 overtime loss at Detroit on Dec. 29. The Predators' last regulation road loss came on Dec. 9 at Toronto, 4-0.
Nashville swept a weekend back-to-back that began with a 6-3 victory at Dallas on Friday followed by a 3-1 home win over the New York Islanders on Saturday night.
The Predators scored all three of their goals in the final five minutes to pull out the win over New York. Luke Evangelista scored a power-play goal with 4:52 left to tie it 1-1 before Alexandre Carrier scored the go-ahead goal with just 7.9 seconds left. Juuso Parssinen added an empty-netter just before the final buzzer.
"We hung in there," Nashville coach Andrew Brunette said. "It was a good, hard hockey game. It was fast, almost playoff hockey like. There wasn't a lot of room out there. I thought we were really resilient through the end and kept at it. I thought we deserved a better fate than what it looked like (it would be) with about five minutes left."
Juuse Saros finished with 24 saves, including a key one on Bo Horvat in the third period to keep it a one-goal game.
"He was great," Brunette said. "You could tell that he was dialed in tonight."
The game with the Golden Knights kicks off a stretch that sees Nashville play six of its next seven games on the road.
"We like each other in the room, and we're having a good time on the road," Carrier said. "That shows on the ice when we're on the road too."
The Predators will be facing a Vegas team that has lost eight of its last 11 games, including a 3-1 home loss to Calgary on Saturday night.
The Golden Knights played without leading scorer Jack Eichel. He was placed on IR on Sunday with a left leg injury suffered after taking a hip check along the boards from former Boston University teammate Matt Grzelcyk in a 2-1 overtime win over the Bruins.
Vegas has sputtered offensively since a sparkling 11-0-1 start to the season, getting shut out five times over the last 28 games. The Golden Knights have scored just 16 goals in their last nine games while being shut out twice.
"Some personnel are struggling," Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said about his team's offensive woes after the loss to the Flames. "Some guys that we rely on to generate offense are out of the lineup. Some guys are off net with their good chances. Tonight there was too much of that. High and wide. A couple of crossbars. That's tough puck luck.
"I like our effort. We're trying to score goals. We just didn't finish well enough."
Forward Jonathan Marchessault, who is second to Eichel (19) on the team with 17 goals, hasn't scored since Dec. 21 at Tampa Bay and hit the crossbar with a shot in the second period on Saturday.
"I thought we played a pretty good game, but at the end of the day, we have to find a way to score goals," Marchessault said.
--Field Level Media