Tyson Jost tallied twice, but the Nashville Predators fell to the Vancouver Canucks by a 4-3 final in a shootout on Thursday night at Rogers Arena. The result gives the Preds a single point in the standings, but they were left disappointed after surrendering two goals in the final six minutes of regulation time.
“It stings,” Jost said. “This one doesn't feel good. It was a big two points for us. There's times where you're great, and there's times where we're kind of leaking a little bit and taking on some stress and some water… We’re definitely disappointed, and stings for sure. We wanted those two points. You know how important that is, and at the same time, you’ve got to bag it, learn from it, and know that we have two more huge games coming up on this road trip. We’ve got to find a way to capitalize.”
“Grateful to get a point - probably didn't deserve one,” Preds Head Coach Andrew Brunette said. “They were the better team from the puck drop. It's one of those nights for our group that was kind of hard to figure out. Obviously, it hurts blowing a two-goal lead in the game, but we didn't really deserve to be in the game.”
After the Canucks scored the game’s first goal, it was Jost who knocked in a loose puck late in the opening frame for his first of the night.
In the second stanza, Jost drove to the net again and deposited his second of the game and third in two outings to give the Preds their first lead of the night. Then, while skating in an NHL game in his home province for the first time, Matthew Wood’s centering feed deflected off a Vancouver defender and into the cage for a 3-1 Nashville advantage after 40 minutes.
But the Canucks scored twice late in regulation to force overtime before Jake DeBrusk scored the lone goal on Juuse Saros to send the visitors away with just a single point in the standings.
“There’s definitely positives we can take from tonight…and when we get to our identity, we're a really good team, and we know what that is in that locker room,” Jost said. “And we know when we're playing that way, it's tough to play against us. So, we’ve got to try and do that for a full 60 minutes… Like I said, this one stings, and you kind of take it, learn from it. But again, you’ve got to move on. We’ve got two huge games coming up, and we know the importance of these stretches of games down the road.”
“We’ve got to play better,” Brunette said. “I mean, we didn't play very well both games, We’ve got to try to find our game back. We have a lot of guys that aren't playing at the level that we're accustomed to, and we need everybody for us to give ourselves a chance.”
Notes:
Joakim Kemell was Nashville’s lone healthy scratch on Thursday night in Vancouver.
The Predators will now begin to head back east, and they’ll face the Edmonton Oilers on Sunday evening before taking on the Jets in Winnipeg on Tuesday night to finish the trip.
