Preds Conclude Season Series Against Jets with Loss

Mikael Granlund and Matt Duchene tallied early, but the Nashville Predators ultimately fell to the Winnipeg Jets by a 5-2 final on Saturday night at Bridgestone Arena. The result gives the Preds one win in three tries against the Jets to finish the season series with Nashville getting into penalty trouble again.
The Predators were pleased with their game when they weren't shorthanded, but the Jets scored five unanswered on Saturday with three of those goals coming on the man advantage.

"We can't take five or six minors - that's going to be too much," Preds defenseman Mattias Ekholm said. "Obviously, there's things in the game that we like, obviously there's things that we can do better, but when it comes down to it, I feel like this is the main main thing that needs to be fixed. If we don't - it's the little details that we also need to fix - are probably not going to matter much."
"You go through different things in a season where you have certain components of your game that need to be better, need to be cleaned up," Preds Head Coach John Hynes said. "On a positive side, I think there's lots of good things in our game 5-on-5. When we're in those situations, we're doing a pretty good job, but the challenge right now is obviously penalties, and it's something that, particularly the last two games, that certainly cost us games… That's the thing in our game right now that we have to get it fixed. No different than anything else when you get in those situations, and that's what our challenge is and we've got to meet the challenge here."

The Predators had a 2-0 advantage less than seven minutes into the contest, and the first strike of the night came from Granlund when he hammered home a shot from the top of the right circle past Connor Hellebuyck. Duchene struck three minutes later on the power play as he sniped his 23rd of the campaign, but the Jets got one back moments later when Mark Scheifele converted with a one-timer in 4-on-4 play.
Winnipeg got the only goal of the second stanza when Kyle Conner tallied on the man advantage, and after a major penalty to Mark Borowiecki in the final frame, Winnipeg got two more on the power play before adding their fifth and final goal of the night into an empty net.

"We want to be a hard team to play against, but there's different components [that make you] hard to play against," Hynes said. "Physicality, puck battles, blocking shots, making wall plays… but also being hard to play against [is staying] out of the box. Right now, I'd say we're a pretty hard team to play against except for that area, and that's allowing teams to get on power plays and get offense and get momentum in the games and change the momentum of the game. And that's what we have to understand: hard to play against has a lot of definitions, and right now in the penalty department we're making ourselves easy to play against."
Now, the Predators will regroup once more with a date against the Washington Capitals on Tuesday - and Nashville knows what needs to improve in their game.
"There's a lot of character in the room," Ekholm said. "I know guys don't want to take penalties. It's not like someone's going out there trying to take penalties, but that's just been the case as of late, and that's something that needs to happen over the course of 82 games. As long as we stay 5-on-5, I think we'll be fine. And in that regard, I guess this is a good problem to have, because it's not easy to fix, but it's something that we can fix, and when we do we're going to be great again. So, it's a matter of us players to be better in this regard."

Notes:

Preds defensemen Mark Borowiecki and Matt Benning both returned to the lineup after missing Wednesday's game due to illness and injury, respectively. Blueliners Ben Harpur and Philippe Myers were scratched.
Nashville centerman Michael McCarron skated in his 100th NHL game.
The Predators will conclude their two-game homestand on Tuesday night when they host former Head Coach Peter Laviolette and the Washington Capitals at Bridgestone Arena.