The Predators might as well change their phone to the Pacific time zone. The Predators also proved they can play well away from home, winning three of four in Anaheim, including the Game 7 clincher.
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Now as we all now know, the Predators fought all the way down to Game 7. The Nashville Predators came along to provide the Sharks a gift.
The Ducks, who fell one win shy of the Stanley Cup Final last season, were viewed as a favorite in the Western Conference, especially after the Los Angeles Kings and Chicago Blackhawks also suffered first-round defeats.
Nashville’s James Neal won’t deny that his team spent a lot of energy getting to the second round, but hopes they can carry the momentum and urgency from Game 7 into Game 1 and get the jump on San Jose.
Corey Perry, the Ducks’ leading goal-scorer during the regular season (34), came up with a fat zero during the series.
The Sharks have been kicking up their heels watching the Predators and Ducks battle it out since eliminating the Kings on April 22. Or with any single one of the Ducks’ chances in a furious third period, including this redirection that bounced off Rinne and clicked right off the post. The Isles walked into Tampa on Wednesday and took Game 1 5-3. But he didn’t score a single goal during the Ducks’ seven-game loss to the Predators, chipping in four assists for his only points.
“We were playing catch-up the whole game, the whole series, all year, and it came back to bite us here in the end”, Getzlaf said.
“I’ve got no excuses, that’s the way it went”, he said. There’s a lot of good things we can take from this series.
Frederik Andersen made 18 saves and Ryan Kesler scored a power-play goal early in the third period for the Ducks. Pekka Rinne was by far the best player on the ice for Nashville in game seven, and he was quite possibly the best goalie in the entire first round. San Jose took both of those series, in 2006 and 2007 respectively. Jones finished with 24 saves and Joe Thornton scored the other goal for theSharks. Netminder Martin Jones notched 37 wins in his first full season as a starter but has a rocky history against the Predators, going 0-2-2 with a 3.62 goals-against average and.
One area the Predators would have liked a little more time to work on is their power play, which went just 1-for-26 in the seven-game Ducks series.
ROAD-ICE ADVANTAGE: Opening the series at home is not exactly an advantage for the Sharks, who won a league-high 28 road games in the regular season and swept all three games in Los Angeles in the first round.
TheSharkswent 2 for 5 on the power play but couldn t solve Rinne at even strength despite 23 shots.
In a long season, you re going to have some breaks like that, Sharkscoach Pete DeBoer said. “I think they have three outstanding lines that are very risky, and even their fourth line has some skill and some finishers”. The over/under total for the contest has been set at 5 goals.
The Nashville Predators and San Jose Sharks open up their conference semifinal series tonight at 10:30PM ET. Hertl picked up the loose puck and beatPredatorsgoalie Carter Hutton for his 20th goal of the season and the 100th National Hockey League point of his career. “We tried everything we could to get that next goal. I can’t explain it. Can’t get a bounce, it seems like, to start out these games, and they end up killing us”.
Game 2 is Saturday at Amalie Arena. TheSharkscontinued to press as they outshot thePredators13-4 in the third period.
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Now-former Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau had plenty of trouble trying to silence the Johansen and Ribeiro lines, and did a decent job, until Craig Smith returned in game six.
