After winning Game 6 of their Western Conference quarter-final series on Monday, the Nashville Predators saw a message in their locker room: “Noon flight to Anaheim”.
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The Nashville Predators eliminated the Anaheim Ducks on Wednesday night with a 2-1 win to advance to the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. You can bet that the Anaheim Fans will leave their Sushi, Fish Tacos and Chardonnay behind in plenty of time to get through Southern California traffic and make it to the Honda Center in time to root on the Ducks. The Game 7 start time, TV details and more are ahead.
Their reward is the chance to go right back to work Friday on their Stanley Cup quest. I’d like to “rap ” with you about them for just a quick moment. Predators centre Cody Bass played only 1 minute, 17 seconds and three shifts before leaving the game with a lower-body injury….
The victor of Game 7 will move on to face the Sharks in Round 2. The Sharks continued to press as they outshot the Predators 13-4 in the third period. Nashville goaltender Pekka Rinne joined the core in the postseason in 2010.
Pekka Rinne made 36 saves for the wild-card Predators, who rallied from a 3-2 series deficit and ousted the Pacific Division champion Ducks with a gritty road victory. With a few big saves by Rinne and just enough fortunate bounces, Nashville earned just the third playoff series win in team history – the first since 2012, and the second over Anaheim. There’s a lot of good things we can take from this series.
They hung on until the final horn, emerging triumphant from their first Game 7 and opening a new chapter in Smashville hockey. But a redirected shot clanked off Rinne’s post in the third, and nothing went in during a frantic final minute, leaving the Ducks with a mountain of frustration. “We won one of them, but I mean we’ve got to get back to where we can out-compete the other team”. The Predators then forced a Game 7 by emerging with a 3-1 victory in Game 6 at home.
The Predators handled the pressure splendidly despite the franchise’s total inexperience with the winner-take-all game.
Ducks forwards Ryan Getzlaf (3a) and Corey Perry (3g, 1a) have appeared in a team-leading five Game Sevens each, with the forwards collecting three and four points respectively in those games. Perry is playing well defensively, but he’s paid more than $8 million annually on average to be one of the league’s best goals scorers. I think as a group we can learn from this series.
Wilson put Nashville 1-0 up after 6:19, stealing from defenseman Simon Despres and whipping a backhand inside the right post. After losing to the Kings in his debut with the team, the Ducks went 18-1-1 and the winger had eight goals and 11 assists in his first 22 games with them.
Thornton stole the puck away from Colton Sissons inside the Predators’ blue line and sent the puck to Pavelski, who had his shot blocked by Josi.
Bruce Boudreau’s record in Game 7s is now 1-7.
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From a San Jose perspective, this is all you could’ve hoped for as this series between the Predators and Ducks has been a very physical, grinding one.
