The Preds ended their road trip with a sad fizzling noise.
Nashville started out with an early penalty for starting the wrong lineup — the players on the ice didn’t match the ones on the paperwork submitted to the league — but were able to kill it off, thanks to some great work by Juuse Saros.
The Preds got a chance of their own on the power play halfway through the period when Ben Myers took a slashing penalty, but despite some sharp passes Joey D’accord stayed on top of things.
Late in the first Gus Nyquist almost managed to score on a breakaway, but a perfect defensive play by Brandon Montour kept Seattle’s slate clean. Then it was the Kraken’s turn for a breakaway, with Daniel Sprong just getting stopped by Saros and a frantic Nashville clear.
With 2:02 remaining, Roman Josi was caught cross-checking, and the Preds went back to the penalty kill. Saros was again spectacular, with a pair of especially massive buzzer-beating saves on Sprong and Chandler Stephenson with four and two seconds left in the period.
The teams traded penalties again when Joshua Mahara was sent to the penalty box for interference early in the second. Josi had to make some good defensive plays as the Kraken got set up shorthanded, and the skater advantage ended with no score for either team. And then again, when Jonathan Marchessault took a tripping penalty. The Preds blocked a lot of shots while shorthanded, and Marchessault almost managed to set up a play on his way out of the box, but again neither team scored.
That pattern broke when Alex Carrier made a desperation play to stop Jared McCann on a breakaway. McCann wasn’t awarded a penalty shot; instead, it was called as a tripping minor. The Preds turned in another strong penalty kill performance, keeping the Kraken largely out of their zone.
Seattle came crashing back in after that, though, and Sprong finished off a passing play to break the ice and put the Kraken up 1-0. Saros, who had had to make excellent save after excellent save, was just too far to one side to stop the shot. It was painful to watch, when the Preds hadn’t been able to generate much or stop the Kraken from doing the same, with Saros hung out to dry.
The Kraken started the third period with another goal just 23 seconds in, this one scored by Montour. They continued to press, pouncing on a Nashville turnover and forcing Saros to continue to work hard to keep the Preds in the game at all.
Zach L’Heureux got a good look a bit before the midpoint of the period, and that seemed to galvanize the Preds a little. Nashville seemed to score a few moments later, but it was overturned because Tommy Novak had directed the puck into the net with a distinct kicking motion — Novak seemed to have guessed even before the review.
They got another chance when Montour took a penalty, which left Filip Forsberg down on the ice in some temporary discomfort, but they didn’t really do anything with that opportunity. Forsberg had the best almost-chance of the power play, and Brandon Tanev was able to get the puck away from him before D’accord had to.
With just under four minutes left, the Preds pulled Saros for a well-deserved rest and to put the extra skater on. Yanni Gourde scored an empty-netter at 17:17, putting the game on ice. The Preds’ offense continues to struggle as the second month of the NHL season draws toward a close.