The Nashville Predators began their five-game homestand with a 5-2 loss to the Anaheim Ducks on Tuesday night at Bridgestone Arena. The result sees the Preds move to 0-3-1 in their last four outings, and Tuesday’s effort left the home team disappointed.
“It wasn’t good,” Preds Captain Roman Josi said of his team’s performance. “We kind of gave them all their goals. I feel like [there were] really easy goals for them… I feel like we played to their strength, just like a wide open game. They’re very skilled and fast, and that’s not how we’re successful. That’s why we lost.”
“Most of the night, we weren’t very sharp,” Preds Head Coach Andrew Brunette said. “We’re hanging in there, but things that we needed to do to play to our strengths, we weren’t doing that often or consistent enough over the course of the game up to that point, and it was going to bite you sooner or later. They’re a very potent rush team, and we gave up too many opportunities. Disappointing game, I think, for everybody. So, we move on.”
After Anaheim scored first on Tuesday night, Spencer Stastney found Tyson Jost in the low slot, and the winger redirected home his first goal as a member of the Preds to even the score through 20 minutes of play.
The Ducks regained the lead early in the second, but a Josi shot was tipped in by Filip Forsberg to tie the game once more. That was as close as the Preds got, however, and before the middle frame was out, Anaheim beat Saros twice more to take a 4-2 advantage into the final period.
The visitors added one more in the third period to finish off the night to leave the Preds wanting more from their output.
“It was a pretty poor performance from our group overall,” Forsberg said. “I think we’re obviously giving them free offense, and pretty much all the goals that they get are giveaways at some point on the ice by us… They’re a really young, fast, skilled team. They can make you pay if you make those mistakes. I think that’s kind of summarized it pretty well.”
Nashville’s homestand continues on Thursday when Vancouver comes to town, and the Predators will certainly be eager for a chance to wash Tuesday’s result away and get back to the identity they’re working to build.
“I think everything you go through, good or bad, you take with you,” Forsberg said. “There are certain things that we should definitely leave, even tonight, and not take with us. But, we’ll get back to work tomorrow and try to tidy some of those things up and back at it on Thursday.”
“It was not a good game for us,” Brunette said. “There’s going to be games like this. Your fears as a coach after a long road trip, these are a little bit of tough games to get going. And we proved, no matter If we talked about it for the last two days, we just didn’t execute kind of what we were supposed to do tonight, and we paid the price. So, all you can do is bury it and get up and go back to work.”
Notes:
Jonathan Marchessault (lower-body, day-to-day) participated in Tuesday’s morning skate but missed his second-straight game due to injury. Nick Blankenburg was scratched against the Ducks.
Nashville’s five-game homestand continues on Thursday when the Vancouver Canucks come to town before the Preds host a back-to-back set with Los Angeles and Dallas this weekend.
