Hockey holidays, indeed.
Jonathan Marchessault tallied twice and the Nashville Predators defeated the Carolina Hurricanes by a 5-2 final on Monday night at Bridgestone Arena. The result sees the Preds conclude their four-game homestand with a 3-0-1 record and sends them into the holiday break with points in five of their last six outings overall.
Steven Stamkos, Ryan O’Reilly and Mark Jankowski also found twine in the victory, Filip Forsberg recorded three assists and Juuse Saros made 25 saves to give the Smashville faithful an early Christmas present.
“I mean, that's a really good team that we beat tonight, and I think we should be proud of that,” Marchessault said. “I think the last couple of weeks, we've been playing some better hockey, and it's good. I think we push hard. It's good to have a break right now, recharge and come back with a lot of energy.”
“I really liked our focus - [it] stayed for three hours tonight, and that was kind of what you asked your group that you needed,” Preds Head Coach Andrew Brunette said. “All in all, it was a great effort again. We’re…kind of getting to our identity, that we're hard to play against, and that we're fast, we're in your face, there’s not a lot of space, and I saw it…earlier [in the season]. But now it's about 11 to 13 games where you saw glimpses of it, and seems to be getting a little bit better each day, each game in the homestand. [I’m] proud of the guys, because this is a hard time of year to play at home. You’ve got family in town, there’s lots of distractions, and we were able to keep it together and play really good hockey. So, we should feel good about it. Take a breath, and there's a lot of work to do coming forward here.”
Nashville had a 1-0 lead through 20 minutes courtesy of a Stamkos goal that the Preds forward just barely snuck past Carolina goaltender Dustin Tokarski at the side of the net, and a helper from Forsberg on the play saw him push his assist streak to five games.
In the middle frame, Marchessault extended his goal streak to four games - and his point streak to seven contests overall - when he converted on a feed from Tommy Novak to double Nashville’s lead after two periods of play.
O’Reilly’s goal came on the power play just 30 seconds into the final period off a beautiful pass from Forsberg, and Jankowski made it 4-0 less than three minutes after that. Carolina got back into the game with a pair of quick strikes of their own, but Marchessault iced it with an empty-netter late in regulation to finish off a rather satisfying homestead.
“It was a good win,” O’Reilly said. “We played a great game… We came home and had this homestand before Christmas, and we wanted to make this building tough to play in, and I think we accomplished that. [It’s] something to be proud of, but something we’ve got to take into the next part of season.”
“I thought our fans have deserved better than our start, and it was on us to be a tough team to beat at home,” Marchessault said. “We want to be that, and we've showed that we are that right now, and obviously keep building. Definitely excited to get on the road and start being a tough team on the road as well.”
The Predators will end 2024 and begin 2025 away from home starting Friday in St. Louis, but first, the club will enjoy a well-deserved holiday break - one that will feel quite festive considering the results as of late.
“I mean, no matter how you cut it, work always affects how you feel at home,” Stamkos smiled. “When things are going good, everyone's family is probably going to have a little happier Christmas. So it was great, like I said, to finish the homestand with those wins. Now, we're not satisfied. We have to carry that [into the new year].”
Notes:
Prior to Monday’s game, the Preds placed forward Cole Smith on Injured Reserve and announced he’ll miss the next 4-6 weeks with a lower-body injury.
Defenseman Justin Barron made his Predators debut on Monday after being acquired last week from Montreal and recorded three hits and two blocked shots in 13:03 of ice time.
Per NHL Public Relations, Filip Forsberg (3a) recorded his seventh career three-assist contest and franchise-record 45th three-point performance. Forsberg became the first player in Predators history to record multiple points in at least four straight home games.
Per NHL PR, Steven Stamkos scored his first career goal on Dustin Tokarski (2 GP). Stamkos has scored at least one regular-season goal on 149 different goaltenders and tied Joe Thornton and Steve Yzerman for the 16th-highest total in NHL history – the only other active players with as many are Alex Ovechkin (178; tied for first) as well as Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin (both 150; tied for 14th).
Stamkos also scored his 565th career goal to pass Joe Nieuwendyk and Mats Sundin (both with 564) for 25th place on the NHL’s all-time list.
The Predators will be off for three days with the holiday break having arrived, and they’ll return with a six-game road trip that begins on Friday in St. Louis against the Blues.
