Ryan O’Reilly tied it, and Steven Stamkos ended it.
A gritty road effort saw the Nashville Predators come back to defeat the Florida Panthers by a 2-1 final in overtime on Thursday night at Amerant Bank Arena. The result gives the Preds victories in four of their last five outings and an OT win against the defending Stanley Cup Champions.
Nashville needed almost 54 minutes of regulation time to find the back of the net after Juuse Saros and the penalty kill put on a show, but O’Reilly did just that before Stamkos potted the winner with just 53 seconds left in the extra frame.
“It was huge,” Stamkos said of the win. “I mean, the penalty kill and our goaltender were the difference tonight, especially in the second. We didn't have much. We were killing the whole time. Those guys were probably exhausted, but we had a great effort in the third. It's one of those games where you hang around long enough and you do the right things, and you just don't let the game get away from you, which we didn't. We kept it at one. It was a great effort.”
“It was a great win,” Preds Head Coach Andrew Brunette said. “I thought we hung in there. Got in a little bit of penalty trouble. Our penalty kill was tremendous. I thought we had some good opportunities. I thought [Florida goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky] was really good. Obviously, ‘Juice’ was definitely a star here tonight. So, I think it was an entertaining game. I know there's only two goals, a lot of great saves, a lot of really good chances back and forth, two committed teams, and we're very happy to get the win.”
Florida took a 1-0 lead in the opening period when Carter Verhaeghe converted on an odd-man rush, and that score held into the final frame thanks to Juuse Saros turning aside 16 shots in the second stanza alone, most of which came on the man advantage.
The Preds killed eight minutes in penalties in that second period, and if it weren’t for Nashville’s efforts on the PK, a chance at overtime wouldn’t have even existed.
“Huge,” Stamkos said of the effort on the kill. “I mean, hats off to them. They were the reason why we won tonight. Special teams are a factor in games. PP, we’ve got to try to find a way to be better, because that's not acceptable. But PK, we're unbelievable, and they picked us up tonight, and obviously, ‘Juice’ is a huge part of that PK, so just a good bounce-back effort. They got us pretty good last week in our barn, so I thought we had a much better effort tonight.”
“‘Juice’ was tremendous,” Brunette said. “I think the kill has been good all year. It's kind of kept us in a lot of games. We took too many tonight, and something we’ve got to clean up a little bit.”
