Things went a bit differently this time, but it had many similarities to the other night, as the Nashville Predators sweep the home-and-home set with a 6-5 victory over the Sharks in San Jose.
The Predators jumped out to a 3-0 lead early in the first period on goals from Gustav Nyquist, Tommy Novak, and Filip Forsberg, quite the opposite of how these two teams began the other night in Nashville. Immediately after the third Nashville goal was scored, three consecutive fights occurred on the following three faceoffs at center ice. The first of these occurred between Luke Kunin and Cole Smith, followed by Barclay Goodrow and Michael McCarron, and Ty Dellandrea and Zach L’Heureux. These three consecutive scraps helped energize the Sharks and turn their fortunes around for at least the remainder of the first period, as Team Teal scored the next two goals to round out the opening period. The Sharks got on the board via Walker Duehr’s first goal of the season and first as a Shark in his Sharks debut. This occurred on a double deflection play in which the initial shot by Mario Ferraro first goes off Nikolai Kovalenko and last touches Walker Duehr before finding the back of the net. The second Sharks goal of this game and last of the first period was Mario Ferraro’s fifth goal of the season, assisted by Mikael Granlund and Timothy Liljegren.
The second period got even crazier, starting with the Preds scoring the first two goals of the middle frame via Filip Forsberg and Steven Stamkos to regain their three-goal lead. Later in the second period, the Sharks get back in this game on Henry Thrun’s first goal of the season, assisted by Alex Wennberg and Nikolai Kovalenko, followed by Fabian Zetterlund putting one in a mostly empty net for his 14th goal of the season, assisted by Will Smith and Mikael Granlund. Soon after, Cole Smith drills Ty Dellandrea on a shoulder-to-head blatant interference, which knocked Dellandrea out of this game with an upper-body injury. As a result, Cole Smith was assessed a five-minute major and match penalties, ejecting him from this game. This scenario put the Sharks on a five-minute power play and allowed Macklin Celebrini to score his NHL rookie-leading 15th goal of the season to tie the game at five, with assists from Mikael Granlund and William Eklund. The Predators scored the difference-maker in the third period via Fedor Svechkov, which would ultimately win it for Nashville.
Yaroslav Askarov got the start against his former team but didn’t have his best night, recording 32 saves on 38 shots against. In addition, Tyler Toffoli returned to the Sharks lineup tonight after missing the past three games with a lower-body injury.
Although they never led at any point during this contest, the Sharks put together a greater effort in the second leg of the home-and-home with the Predators than in the first one the other night, but they didn’t get many opportunities they had to go their way, especially in the third period. It was insane to see three consecutive tilts occur right after the Sharks went down 3-0 in the first period. It was also great to see Walker Duehr make an instant impact with the Sharks in his Sharks debut and San Jose get goals from a few defensemen, placing them third in the NHL in goals from defensemen. Next up, the Sharks host the defending Stanley Cup champions in the Florida Panthers on Saturday at 7 pm PT.
Sources: NBC Sports Bay Area/California, NHL App, Curtis Pashelka via X
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