Colton Sissons and Tommy Novak scored for the visitors, but the Nashville Predators fell to the Chicago Blackhawks by a 6-2 final on Friday night at United Center. The result sees the Preds lose to the Hawks for the second time in their last 10 meetings with Nashville’s skid reaching six games overall.
“Especially in the second [period], we didn't manage the puck,” Preds Captain Roman Josi said. “We knew coming in they’re a great rush team. They’ve got a lot of skill, a lot of speed, and we just kept feeding their rush. We kept getting odd man rushes against us, and they capitalized on it. We talked about [managing the puck better], and for some reason we're not doing it.”
The Blackhawks got the game’s first goal in the opening period as Frank Nazar solved Juuse Saros, but just 20 seconds later, Sissons took a feed from Cole Smith to beat Petr Mrazek to even the score at 1-1.
But after that, Chicago regained the lead before the first frame was out as Pat Maroon tallied, and then the home team got goals from Connor Bedard, Ryan Donato and Seth Jones in the second stanza.
Donato added another in the final period before Novak recorded the second of the night for the Preds with just over a minute to play in regulation, but Friday simply did not go Nashville’s way.
“Obviously it's been a really frustrating stretch for us here,” Preds Head Coach Andrew Brunette said. “It's been a frustrating year, I think, right from the start, and kind of getting our head out of it a little bit, and now we sunk right back in. So, it'll be a test of our character. We’ve got one game before the break, and let's try to play our best game and regroup here a little bit.”
“We talked about it tonight before the game - we have two games left, let’s play our style of game and get into the break with a good feeling, and we didn't do that tonight,” Josi said. “So, we have another chance tomorrow. It’s one more game before the break, and we’ve got to find our identity, find our game, and we’ve got to do it tomorrow night.”
Notes:
Preds forward Joakim Kemell made his NHL debut on Friday night and led the team with seven shots on goal in 11:44 of ice time.
Winger Zach L’Heureux left the game in the second period and did not return.
Defenseman Adam Wilsby did not play Friday and is day-to-day with an upper-body injury. Forward Luke Evangelista and Mark Jankowski also remained out due to their respective injuries as well.
The Predators will head right back to Nashville to host the Buffalo Sabres on Saturday night at Bridgestone Arena, the final contest before the NHL break and the 4 Nations Face-Off begins next week.
