NASHVILLE. — Nashville (4-4-5) got 29 saves from Juuse Saros, scored two five-on-five goals and had Filip Forsberg’s first multi-goal game of the year, but still lost 4-3 to the Washington Capitals (8-4-0).
“I thought we lost a little bit of momentum at different times during the game,” Andrew Brunette said. “I thought we put ourselves in a really good position with 10 minutes, and unfortunately it was a goal that was probably preventable.”
The Predators jumped to a 1-0 lead on a five-on-three power play, but lost defenseman Cole Hutson after a turnover, allowing the Capitals to tie. The Predators killed the Capitals’ first power play but lost coverage, and Boone Jenner scored an ugly go-ahead goal off a rebound.
The Predators got on the forecheck to re-equalize at 2-2, but another turnover and a defensive stumble let Hutson put the Capitals ahead once more. The Predators dug deep again, tying the score in the third after crashing the net for a rebound, but once again lost Capitals skaters in the defensive zone, and Alex Tuch scored the game-winner.
The Predators had multiple positives in Thursday’s game against the Capitals, but each positive was followed by a negative, and ultimately Nashville ended up on the wrong side of the scoreboard for the second straight game, marking the ninth time this year.
“I think there’s probably, you could say, a mental error on everybody’s part on the last one,” Brunette said. “I think a lot of different things happened on that one. The first one I think was just I thought we did some right things, he kind of snuck one by Juice there. We fall down for the third one. We killed a penalty, we couldn’t move the puck there, instead we freeze it, and we get a faceoff. We lose a little bit of coverage in front of our net. It was kind of a flukey kind of goal. Four goals in this league, you give up four it’s hard to win. I think they’re all preventable, and tonight we didn’t prevent them.”
The Nashville Predators have 13 points in 13 games and are tied for the final Wild Card spot in the Western Conference as the first month comes to a close. With so many new pieces on the roster, Nashville has plenty to hang its hat on early in the year, but the Predators need to clean up mental errors and prevent the preventable if they want to take the next step forward as November approaches.
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