The Nashville Predators beat the Florida Panthers on Thursday night, snapping Florida’s four-game win streak.
Game Recap
The Florida Panthers and Nashville Predators started out slow on Friday night, until Jonathan Huberdeau scored a beauty to put Florida up 1-0, heading into the second. In the second period, Calle Jarnkrok scored his 9th goal of the season to tie the game at one apiece. The score remained the same headed into the third. But in the third, Jarnkrok scored yet another goal, which ended up being the game-winner. Nashville won 2-1 in Sunrise, Florida.
Juuse Saros
Despite missing several weeks with an upper-body injury, Juuse Saros came back to the ice absolutely focused, with tons of force. The 25-year-old made 40 saves on Friday night, allowing only one goal.
Takeaways/Notes
- Nashville snapped Florida’s four-game win streak.
- Nashville snapped Sergei Bobrovsky’s six-game win streak.
- Jarnkrok (3-4—7) has factored on 7 straight team goals since March 13, tied with David Legwand (2-5—7 in 2011-12) and Yanic Perreault (0-7—7 in 2005-06) for the longest such run in Predators franchise history.
- MacKenzie Weegar (0-1—1) factored on the game-opening goal to extend his point streak to six games (1-7—8) and matched Aleksander Barkov (1-7—8 in 6 GP) for the longest run by a Florida Panthers player this season.
- Panthers Defenseman MacKenzie Weegar extended his career-high points streak to six games with an assist on Huberdeau’s goal.
- Predators Defenseman Alexandre Carrier recorded his first career assist.
Postgame Quotes
Jonathan Huberdeau on Acciari’s PK (Power-play kill) effort: “He is the type of guy who will do anything for the team and you can tell on that penalty kill. It just shows how good of a teammate he is and he wants to win every night.”
Huberdeau on the loss as a whole: “I think we gave up a little too many chances tonight. We were lucky that it was a 2-1 game. Bob made some really good saves and kept us in the game. I think Saros was pretty good on the other side, too.”
Coach Joel Quenneville: “Games are going to get harder… Every night you need everyone pushing. Every shift is going to be more magnified.”
Next Up
The Florida Panthers will face the Nashville Predators again on Saturday, at 2:00 PM EST.