And while the Sharks were still licking their wounds.Viktor Arvidsson (who has been all over the ice in this series) scored the first Stanley Cup Playoff goal of his career only minutes into overtime, giving the Predators a 4-3 victory and forcing a decisive game 7 in California on Thursday.
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Nashville Predators center Colin Wilson (33) celebrates after scoring a goal against San Jose Sharks goalie Martin Jones, left, during the third period in Game 6 of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup Western Conference semifinal playoff series, Monday, May 9, 2016, in Nashville, Tenn. “We’ve just got to play our game”. As we all know, the empty seats at SAP have been a trending topic this month, even if they have diminished somewhat the last couple of games. “We didn’t get enough pucks deep”.
“Good start. After that, they were a little more desperate throughout”, Vlasic said. “But we didn’t play our best game, and we nearly won. So, we’ll be better on Thursday”.
In overtime, Miikka Salomaki flipped a puck that landed near Melker Karlsson’s skates. They made it count.
Going into Monday, Couture was tied for the team lead with Brent Burns with 13 points. Predators goalie Pekka Rinne appeared to stumble as he tried to move from right to left to stop the shot. Jones finished with 28 saves to guide the visitors to overtime despite a shot differential of 27-10 over the second and third periods.
The third period saw the Sharks take the lead briefly on awful play by Rinne.
The third period began and just 2:07 into it the Predators received the game’s first power play.
“It’s tough to give that one up, we don’t want to give it up, obviously”, DeBoer said. You never know what’s going to happen at that point.
Oh, maybe it deserved to happen, given the bounceback qualities that both teams have shown at different junctures in this series. “It should come down to a Game 7”.
“You try to track the puck the best you can”, Jones said of the play. “The next two shifts, they were in our end, and we had a breakdown on a 3-on-3 or a maybe 3-on-4, guys were standing around, and it’s in the back of our net”.
The Sharks’ ability to contain the Mike Fisher line with Neal and Wilson figured to be critical. He’s a much better skater than he is a puckhandler, let alone a scorer, and he was definitely a curious choice to replace Craig Smith on the top line. It should have been an insurmountable lead for the Preds, given San Jose’s prowess on the road and the way they thoroughly dominated game 5.
The Predators erased this same 3-2 deficit in Round 1, bouncing the Ducks in their first Game 7 in franchise history.
After Ryan Ellis blocked Couture’s clearing attempt, he fed Johansen, who faked a shot, carried the puck around a sliding Braun and used a backhand to beat Jones and tie the game.
The Sharks spent the rest of the period, or close to it, trying to keep from falling behind.
Matt Nieto was injured late in the first period after he slid lower body first into the Predators’ net.
The Sharks still led, 2-1, but the building responded loudly and lifted off. The Sharks jumped out to a three goal lead, saw Los Angeles rally back to tie the game, then dominated the third period in a 6-3 win.
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The Predators went almost two periods without taking a penalty; until Nashville defenseman Roman Josi got called on a tripping infraction with 57 seconds left in the period.
