Four different Predators skaters found the back of the net, but Nashville ultimately fell to the St. Louis Blues by a 7-4 final on Friday night at Enterprise Center. The result sees Nashville’s point streak end at four games in its return from the holiday break.
Mark Jankowski, Steven Stamkos, Nick Blankenburg and Jonathan Marchessault all tallied for the Preds, but Nashville never had the lead in a game that simply wasn’t up to their standard.
“I think there [were] some opportunities there to win the hockey game, but unfortunately, we did some things early in the game that [were] hard for us to come back [from],” Preds Head Coach Andrew Brunette said. “Obviously taking a penalty late, I thought we had really good momentum, and that one hurt.”
“It was just too sloppy early,” Stamkos said. “I know it's coming off a break, but those are the games you want to be on the right side of to build the momentum off what we did before the break, and I thought it was a missed opportunity. But the PP got things rolling a little bit. So hopefully we can keep some momentum from there, gain something from this game, but [it was] just too sloppy with…giving them some chances, with our own mistakes, and it cost us.”
The two clubs combined for six goals in the game’s opening 20 minutes, including tallies from Jankowski and Stamkos - the latter of which came on the power play - but Nashville surrendered four to the Blues, including two goals before the contest was three minutes old.
Blankenburg brought Nashville back to within one in the middle frame with a beautiful individual effort driving to the net, but the Blues got their fifth of the night to spell the end of the evening for Saros who was replaced by Justus Annunen after giving up five goals on 16 shots.
Marchessault got Nashville’s second power-play goal of the night on his birthday to extend his goal streak to five games - and point streak to eight contests - but that was as close as the Preds came before giving up a sixth goal followed by an empty-netter for the Blues.
The Predators will now have two days to regroup before heading to Winnipeg, and they’ll look for a better showing against the top team in the League.
“I think our mindset [needs to change],” Brunette said. “I didn't like our mindset early in the game, right from the first goal against… We didn't do that the whole homestand. Start the period off, we start going back with things, and weren't playing quite as direct as we have been playing. So, these games are always funny - you get off for a break a few days and kind of forget how to play a little bit. So, we’ve got to get back to basics.”
“It's not going to get any easier with the quality opponents that we're playing coming up here, so we have no choice but to clean things up,” Stamkos said. “So, we'll look to do that. And it's going to be a challenge, but we have no choice at this point.”
Notes:
Nashville once again went with 11 forwards and seven defensemen on Friday night just as they did in Monday’s win, with Juuso Parssinen serving as the lone healthy scratch.
Per NHL Public Relations, Jonathan Marchessault extended his goal streak to a career-high five games. Marchessault matched Sergei Kostitsyn (2010-11), Greg Johnson (1998-99) and Sergei Krivokrasov (1998-99) for the longest goal streak by a player in their first season with the Predators.
The Predators have two more games remaining in the calendar year - a back-to-back set in Winnipeg and Minnesota on Dec. 30 and 31, respectively. From there, the Preds will head back to Canada for their first three games of 2025.
