Nick Blankenburg and Luke Evangelista tallied for the Predators, but Nashville ultimately fell to the Winnipeg Jets by a 5-2 final on Saturday night at Bridgestone Arena. The result sees the Preds split their back-to-back set as the November portion of their schedule comes to a close.
“Obviously, it's frustrating,” Blankenburg said of the loss. “Feel like we let one slip there, and we're just trying to build that consistent game. We're trying to find that for 60 minutes, and I think you'd be blind if you don't see that. There's glimpses and there's parts where it's really good. We’ve just got to find a way to do it for 60 minutes consistently. And the answer to that, I don't know, but just continue to take it a day at a time and try to continue to learn and grow and just keep fighting.”
“The pushback is a good sign,” Evangelista said. “I think we've been resilient to the end of games in that sense. But I think just early on, slow, loose defensively - that starts with me. I think, playing against top guys, you’ve gotta be sharp defensively, and a couple bad reads led to goals. I think we clean that up, we keep it tight early, we don't have to claw back and we'll be in a better spot.”
Winnipeg scored early and late in the opening period for a 2-0 advantage, and they went up by three midway through the second stanza. However, late in the middle period, Blankenburg gave the Preds life when he blasted one home from the point on the power play.
Then, early in the final frame, Evangelista picked up a loose puck at the side of the net and roofed a backhand past Jets goaltender Eric Comrie to cut the Winnipeg lead to one. That was as close as the Preds came, however, as the Jets added some insurance before finishing the night with an empty-net tally.
“It’s really hard in this League when you give one up in the first minute and the last minute of the [first] period,” Preds Head Coach Andrew Brunette said. “That was kind of my takeaway.”
Nashville earned four out of a possible six points in a stretch of three games in four nights, and they’ll now shift their focus to the month of December and the good that came out of a pair of recent wins.
“The last two games [before Saturday], we strung together a couple big wins, especially on the road,” Evangelista said. “We’ve got to play the way that we played in those two. We were desperate, we played a complete 60, we battled to the very end and it’s kind of our identity. We’ve got to be desperate right now.”
Notes:
Nashville’s lineup remained unchanged in the second half of the back-to-back with Jonathan Marchessault (lower body, day-to-day) sitting out once more. Justin Barron and Adam Wilsby were scratched on the back end, and rookie winger Reid Schaefer made his home debut in his second NHL game.
Roman Josi played the entire final 5:15 of regulation time.
With a busy Thanksgiving week now complete, the Preds will host the Calgary Flames on Tuesday night before a two-game trip to Florida and Carolina later in the week.
