Nashville Predators and San Jose Sharks players scramble for the puck during the first overtime period in Game 4 of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup Western Conference semifinal playoff series Thursday, May 5, 2016, in Nashville, Tenn.
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The Sharks host the Predators in a pivotal Game 5 of their second round playoff series Saturday night at SAP Center.
The game was tied at 2-2 after two periods when Brent Burns gave the Sharks their first lead in the third period on the power play, his second score of the night.
As the Sharks and Nashville Predators entered the third overtime period, only one thing was certain.
The Sharks picked their game up in the second period and went into the intermission with a 2-2 tie after Joonas Donskoi scored just as a power play had expired at 14:09.
Now leading 2-1 in the series, the Sharks are hoping that they can recapture the momentum after they recently lost to the Preds in the third game.
Pekka Rinne made 44 stops for the Predators and Martin Jones came up with 41 saves for the Sharks.
It didn’t appear any Sharks had suffered significant injuries in Tuesday’s 4-1 loss to the Predators in Game 3.
And in the end, as the goal horn sounded after Nashville’s Mike Fisher scored the game-winning goal at 1:03 a.m. That would have given the beloved Los Tiburones a victory in regulation time. final five minutes of the third period when they were clinging to a 3-2 lead.
The Predators lost 60 seconds into a third overtime past year in the playoffs in Game 4 at Chicago, and this is their first overtime game of this postseason. To have a better chance of going home up three-games-to-one, the Sharks need to do a better job right from the drop of the puck, so to speak. DeBoer revealed the officials had told him the contact Pavelski’s stick made with the puck had been dismissed as incidental.
Wilson tops Nashville with six points in the series, with seven in a five-game postseason run. Predators coach Peter Laviolette thinks this might have been Rinne’s strongest performance of the the postseason.
The Sharks controlled the second overtime with an 11-4 advantage in shots on goal, but they couldn’t capitalize on a late power play.
The puck kept finding Fisher in Game 4, and he did not spoil his golden looks at the net.
The scoring wasn’t done in the first period after the two quick strikes as Mike Fisher found the back of the net with 10:10 left in the first frame.
The Predators came out on top just past the midway point of the third extra frame by a count of 4-3 to knot the series up at two games a piece. Joel Ward couldn’t convert on a wraparound try, while Rinne stopped the puck with his left leg after Sharks center Logan Couture skated up the slot.
“With a day off, it resets everything for both teams”, he said.
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San Jose outshot Nashville 9-3 in the second overtime, forcing Rinne to make several saves from point-blank range. Nashville’s scratches were D Petter Granberg, C Cody Bass, C Mike Ribeiro, LW Eric Nystrom, LW Austin Watson, G Marek Mazanec and RW Gabriel Bourque.
