The Nashville Predators capped off their three-game homestand this week with an emphatic 5-2 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday night.
Nashville was led by Luke Evangelista and Filip Forsberg’s three-point performances en route to a big win in front of the home crowd.
“I hope it catapults him here a little bit where he builds on it and keeps it going,” head coach Andrew Brunette said of Evangelista.
“For him, Saturday night Smashville, Hockey Night in Canada, being a Toronto kid it’s a big deal. So, hopefully, this gives him some confidence. I was happy for a lot of guys, we haven’t left too many Saturday nights where we left feeling good about ourselves.”
However, it was the Leafs who rewarded their horde of fans in Nashville first by finding the back of the net on the opening powerplay to take a 1-0 lead. Veteran John Tavares scored his 30th goal of the season after Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner worked together along the right wall.
Toronto extended their lead to 2-0 off a clean faceoff win from Matthews against Fedor Svechkov and Marner ripped an unsuspected shot by goalie Juuse Saros. Then with 5:50 left to play in the frame, Scott Laughton thought he tipped in a puck but after a review, it was deemed no goal due to his stick being too high.
Nashville opened the second stanza of play on the powerplay and it was Michael Bunting who scored his first goal as a member of the organization. Svechkov fed him a quick pass from behind the net and Bunting beat Joseph Woll on his glove side to make it a 2-1 game.
Then at the halfway point of the contest, Kieffer Bellows scored his first goal at home as a member of the team. He broke down the right side of the ice and ripped a shot past Woll to tie it up 2-2.
With 46 seconds left in the period, Filip Forsberg put home a greasy goal to put Nashville ahead 3-2, his 26th of the season. He was on the rush with Brady Skjei and Ryan O’Reilly. Woll just wasn’t able to keep the loose puck out of the net along his left post.
“As the game went on it looked a little bit more like us, where we were transitioning fast, putting pucks in areas and we were predictable,” Brunette said of his team’s game in transition.
“When we’re predictable we’re connected and we look a lot faster than we are and I thought we played fast tonight.”
Nashville had a powerplay opportunity with 14:23 remaining in regulation and the Leafs wound up holding strong defensively to keep the offense at bay.
The Predators’ offense kept pouring on their chances in the final frame and Luke Evangelista extended his team’s lead to 4-2 on dish from Forsberg who was along the right wall.
“Games like that can swing momentum for us. You could really feel the atmosphere in the building,” Evangelista said. “We went down early and kind of come back and the building was alive. We have to capitalize off wins like this and we’re not quitting at this point in the season just because of where we are. We’re trying to build something here for next year.”
It’s the Toronto native’s fourth three-point game in his career. His last came on Nov. 24, 2023, in St. Louis.
Up Next
The Predators are traveling to St. Louis tonight to finish a back-to-back this weekend against the Blues on Sunday. Max Herz and Hal Gill are on the call with coverage starting at 4 pm and puck drop set for 5 pm.
This coming week the Predators are playing in Raleigh against the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday. Then Nashville opens a two-game home slate, first, the Blues come in on Thursday then the Vegas Golden Knights are in town one week from tonight.
Follow Nick Kieser on Twitter/X: @KieserNick
Photos courtesy of Nashville Predators
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