The Nashville Predators picked up their third loss of the season losing 7-3 against the Seattle Kraken on Tuesday night. It’s the first time since the 2006-07 campaign that Nashville has started a season 0-3.
In his first home start of the season, goaltender Juuse Saros stopped 29 of the 35 he faced. Saros is now off to a 0-2 start after coming back from a lower-body injury & missing the home opener last week.
“There are multiple factors, I think our decision-making in some of those areas haven’t been great,” head coach Andrew Brunette said of Nashville allowing odd-man rushes against Seattle. “We’re trying to play firewagon hockey here & we’ve kind of lost a little bit of our identity of how we’re supposed to play. We’re kind of playing how we want to play right now. There’s still a lot of summer hockey in our game.”
The Predator’s streak of conceding the first goal of the game also continued against a relentless Seattle group. Kraken defenseman Ryker Evans fired a shot that hit off the left post & went in. Brandon Tanev was in front screening Saros in front of the blue paint to take a 1-0 lead.
“When we get behind in games you get kind of careless & I think when we’re trying to be cute & make the extra play, try to turn something from nothing into something & unfortunately it’s going the other way,” Brunette said.
Nashville had a hard time establishing offensive zone time in the first period. Seattle kept Nashville limited to the perimeter with just a pair of shots finding the net in the first eight minutes of the contest.
Seattle didn’t take long to take a two-goal lead as Oliver Bjorkstrand beat Saros on his blocker side with Chandler Stephenson feeding him the puck on the rush.
As the Predators settled into the game, defenseman Alexandre Carrier was generating offensive plays taking an extra second to read plays. He came up with a huge block on Jared McCann nine minutes in.
Then the first-period action began to heat up as Michael McCarron scored his first goal of the season late in the first period as traffic formed in front of Daccord. McCarron roofed a backhand shot to the top left corner to cut the deficit to 2-1.
Just two minutes later it was Mark Jankowski who was in the left corner with pressure & took a glance across the ice to see Tommy Novak. Jankowski’s pass seamlessly got to Novak who tied the game at two.
Seattle didn’t go down without a fight as Kraken defenseman Brandon Montour fired a shot from the blue line with 33 seconds remaining. Tanev tipped home the shot as the Kraken exited the opening frame with a 3-2 lead.
Nashville was unable to convert on the powerplay with just two shots finding the net. Once Seattle killed that penalty the Predator’s powerplay stood at a staggering 1-for-10 to start the season. By the end of the game, it was 1-for-11 through three contests.
“I thought we looked slow. They were fast, they were on us & we lost a lot of battles by being a little slow,” Brunette said. “When you’re slow that means you’re either predictable or you’re not connected. We’re a little bit on both sides right now.”
As the second period waned on it was a frame mainly dictated by the Kraken as they kept the Predators at bay.
Then late in the second frame as things shifted to a 4-on-4 it was Filip Forsberg who fired a shot on goal that then bounced over to Brady Skjei. The defenseman curled around & shot the puck under Daccord’s elbow to even the game at three.
Nashville’s lead faded in just 2:40 of playing time in the third period as Jaden Schwartz & Jordan Eberle found the back of the net. The Predators fell apart defensively & failed to generate clean entries into the offensive zone.
“We’re not at that part where we are relentless, we’re trying to be & we’re kind of not. We kind of forget sometimes how hard it is,” Brunette said.
Up Next
The Predators have three more games on their current homestand with the Edmonton Oilers coming to town on Thursday evening.
Stay tuned for coverage on 102.5 The Game as Pete Weber & Jay More will have the call.
Max Herz is hosting the first edition of Smashville Live this season with More tomorrow night at Brewhouse South in Cool Springs at 6 p.m. Juuso Pärssinen & Philip Tomasino are this week’s guests.
Follow Nick Kieser on Twitter/X: @KieserNick
Photos courtesy of the Nashville Predators
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