The Nashville Predators lost to the Chicago Blackhawks with a final score of 7-2 at home. 

Nashville Predators returned home on Saturday night to face off against the Chicago Blackhawks after going 1-2-1 on the road. Nashville shutout the Blackhawks 3-0 after their first meeting on Oct. 29.  

 “We have to do a little bit of soul searching. It’s not been going well for a little while here and it’s been a struggle. But teams go through this as you know, and we have the personnel here to turn this thing around in a hurry. We have a huge game against Winnipeg Tuesday so can’t well on this one too long,” said Colton Sissons. 

Chicago Blackhawks struck first in Saturday’s matchup and did not let up. Just 6:33 into the game, Erik Gustafsson scored immediately after the face-off with only the second shot on goal to make it 1-0. Dominik Kubalik made it 2-0 in the last two minutes before first intermission. Although the Blackhawks led the scoreboard, the Predators led with shots on goal 12-9. Nashville was forced to chase the game, although they arguably had better quality shots.  

In the second period, Brent Seabrook and David Kampff put the Hawks up 4-0. Patrick Kane extended his season high streak to an eight-game point streak with an assist on Seabrook’s goal. The Predators did not have as many quality shots in the second period, and Pekka Rinne was replaced with Juuse Saros following the fourth goal. 

The Nashville Predators are known for their third period offensive push. Captain Roman Josi put his team on the board with the help of Matt Duchene just 3:40 in. Yet, Patrick Kane went top shelf to score the first goal against Saros. Alex Nylander followed by scoring two consecutive goals to push their lead to 7-1. Josi scored his second goal of the night at the 18:52 mark to finish the scoring at 7-2.  

“You try to keep pushing. We could look at the third period. We lost that period; they scored three goals. I think the chances were probably a larger deficit than in the first period. It went in the back of the net (for them) for different reasons for things that we can control and do better; we need to do better. Offensively, I feel like if we get those looks again inside of the game, we will put up six or seven goals ourselves. I don’t feel like it was wide open, but they were an opportunistic team tonight and made the most of their chances,” said head coach Peter Laviolette.

The team is now facing a four-game losing streak as they face-off against the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday while at home.  

“We’re aware of it,” said Roman Josi on the team’s recent home record on Saturdays. “It’s not good. We just got to be a lot better than what we were tonight. We lost 7-2 at home on a Saturday night, that just can’t happen.”