The kids - and the goaltender - are all right.
Ryan Ufko scored his first career NHL goal, and Juuse Saros made 43 saves as the Nashville Predators came back to beat the Seattle Kraken by a 4-2 final on Tuesday night at Climate Pledge Arena. The result gives the Preds a massive victory over the Kraken to pull them to within one point of the final Wild Card spot in the Western Conference behind Seattle.
In addition to Ufko, Tyson Jost, Reid Schaefer and Steven Stamkos also tallied for Nashville, and Saros was spectacular all night to lead the Predators past a two-goal deficit for another comeback victory.
“We had a slow start, and you never want to do that, especially on the road, but just the grit, everyone digging in, we had no passengers after the first period,” Ufko said. “Everyone wanted to make a difference in the game. The older guys said it, but without "Juice,” we didn't stand a chance in that [game]. He had over 40-plus saves. They weren't easy ones. There were a lot of hard ones, but we found a way and it was really a good game.”
“I think we've gone through a whole year of never being easy, and we're built for it,” Preds Head Coach Andrew Brunette said. “We almost expect it every night, which, I think credit to the resilience of the group. Obviously, the first period wasn't very good. We weren't up to pace. We were a little sleepy, but we dug in the second, and I thought we had the better of them for the rest of the game. Obviously, "Juice” was big in key moments, our kids made some big plays and we lived to fight another day.”
After a first period that was dominated by Seattle, the Predators certainly got going in the middle frame. First, Fedor Svechkov found Jost with a cross-ice pass, and the forward went top shelf past Joey Daccord to get Nashville on the board.
Soon after, Matthew Wood went to work on his way to the net, and after reaching around a defender, he found a fellow rookie in Schaefer who simply had to tap home the game-tying goal.
And then Ufko decided to put on a show.
Skating in just his fourth career game, the rookie defenseman took a pass from Jonathan Marchessault at the point, deked left and right on his way to the cage and then undressed Daccord going backhand-forehand to deposit a beauty of a first NHL goal.
“That's pretty special, honestly,” Schaefer said of Ufko’s goal. “I've seen that maybe twice in Milwaukee, where he does the shimmy shake and goes down and pots one, but I haven't seen that move where he does like, three little shimmy shakes and scores. I mean, that's a beautiful goal, and he's a special player. So, it was fun to watch.”
“I mean, you don't see too many prettier first goals in the NHL than that one,” Brunette said. “That was about as good as it gets.”
