At one point on Tuesday night, the Predators trailed by four goals.
Until they didn’t.
Nashville came all the way back to defeat the San Jose Sharks by a 7-5 final at Bridgestone Arena to complete their first four-goal comeback win in franchise history. The result gives the Preds four straight victories to conclude their five-game homestand - and one of the more memorable outings the club has ever experienced to start a home-and-home set with the Sharks.
“I think it's hard to make sense of it, but a huge comeback for us,” Predators Captain Roman Josi said. “Not a good start, obviously… It was a bad first period, but we found a way. And we talked about it in the room; we’ve got to believe that we can come back from this, and early in the year, we didn't do that. To be able to come back, it's pretty huge for us, for our confidence that we know we can do it. But at the same time, our starts have got to be a lot better, because that [is a] skilled team over there and playing them [again in two days], and you saw what they do when you’re not on them.”
“A tough one to make sense of,” Preds Head Coach Andrew Brunette said. “A little bit of a roller coaster ride. Kind of summed up a lot of the year in one game here, and hopefully at the end of the year, we leave it like we left this game.”
Seven different goal scorers - Tommy Novak, Fedor Svechkov, Justin Barron, Jonathan Marchessault, Josi, Nick Blankenburg and Filip Forsberg - found the back of the net for Nashville, and Justus Annunen made 15 saves in relief to give the Preds their 14th consecutive game with at least a point against the Sharks.
“Just feels good to be part of that [comeback],” Marchessault said. “I think it was one of those games that was kind of a tough start again for us, and obviously, we play them next game, so they're probably going to have a similar start. So, it's on us to know to match that. But tonight, we played two really good periods and found a way of winning hockey.”
The Preds were down 3-0 less than 12 minutes into the contest before Novak tallied off a faceoff to give Nashville life. However, San Jose added another before the opening frame was out, and after the Predators pulled Juuse Saros in favor of Annunen to start the second stanza, the Sharks took a 5-1 lead shortly thereafter.
But the Preds wouldn’t go away, and after Svechkov converted on the power play, Barron brought Nashville to within two less than a minute later for a 5-3 count through 40 minutes of play.
And in the third, the home team just kept coming.
Less than 30 seconds into that final frame, Steven Stamkos fed Marchessault to bring the Preds within one, and just five minutes later, Josi tied things at five with a rocket on the power play.
Less than three minutes after that, Blankenburg gave the Predators the only lead they needed when his shot snuck through Sharks goaltender Alexandar Georgiev, and Forsberg iced things with an empty-netter to extend his goal streak to six games and put an exclamation point on one heck of an evening.
“Over the last month, I think we've been trying to build towards that [belief in our locker room],” Blankenburg said. “We’ve played some good hockey teams and have played some good hockey in the last month. And I think just continuing to build off of that has been big for us… And we owe [Saros] one for sure. We didn't help him out one bit on those first goals. He’s bailed us out many times, so we owe him one. But at the end of the day, we found a way to win, and good teams find a way to win. That was a fun one at home.”
So, where does that belief come from that a team can still find a way to win even when the score at the time may seem insurmountable?
“It comes from our group,” Brunette said. “You're proud of them. They haven't given up all year, and they haven't given up in that game, and they kept pushing for this. It’s nothing I did. They did it all, and they wanted it and they went out and got it.”
Not only have the Predators won four straight games for the first time all season, but they all came within the friendly confines of their home arena. That leaves a satisfying feeling as the Preds continue to collect points and find ways to win games, something they’ll take with them with less than three months remaining in the regular season.
“We've been playing well the past, I want to say six, seven weeks, and I think we've been pretty good at home,” Marchessault said. “We've played some good hockey, and we're into most games, but some nights we just didn't find a way to win games. And I think right now, we're doing a little bit more of that. So it's definitely positive. And it's honestly from experience. It’s a tough building to come play at, so we’ve got to use that to our advantage, and right now we are talking about that resiliency that maybe this group didn't have as much [earlier in the season].”
Notes:
Preds forward Cole Smith returned to action after missing 11 games due to a lower-body injury. Forward Mark Jankowski, who is week-to-week with an upper-body injury, was scratched on Tuesday, as were Kieffer Bellows and Spencer Stastney.
Jonathan Marchessault finished the night with a goal and three assists to extend his point streak to nine games for the first time in his career, surpassing his previous best of 8 GP from Dec. 10-27, 2024. Marchessault also extended his assist streak to eight games and passed Kyle Turris (7 GP in 2017-18) for the longest by a player in their first season with the Preds.
Filip Forsberg recorded his 59th career multi-assist game to tie Martin Erat for the second most in franchise history behind Roman Josi (109).
The Predators will now jet off to California for the first time this season to meet the Sharks in San Jose on Thursday night before facing the Anaheim Ducks on Saturday.
