The Nashville Predators weren’t able to begin their five-game homestand with a victory as they were blanked by goaltender Jake Allen and the St. Louis Blues 4-0.
After going 2-1-1 on their annual two-week road trip, Nashville came home to play in their second divisional match-up of the season. The Predators put 45 shots on Allen, but just couldn’t break him. Multiple posts were hit, multiples closes chances were had, but no matter what they threw at him, Nashville just wasn’t able to solve the Blues backstopper.
“Being outscored and not scoring at home is always frustrating,” said Filip Forsberg. “I don’t know what else to say. I think we were playing really well all game. Obviously with 40-something shots on net, we shouldn’t have zero goals.”
Nashville started off playing in a 1-0 hole early on as the Blues tallied their first goal at 8:23 of the first period while on the power play. St. Louis made the Predators pay twice for the penalties they took. When they entered the game, the Blues had the third worst power play in the league coming in at only 11.4%, but Saturday night’s tallies will certainly bump them up a few notches.
“We want to be the best team in the league on the penalty kill,” said Forsberg in frustration. “Lately it hasn’t been like that, but we know what we’re doing and it’s just about execution.”
A frustrating factor for the Predators was that they were given multiple chances to get on the board. This included 1:20 of a two-man advantage in the second period. For the majority of the power play, Nashville focused on getting the puck to captain Shea Weber and him releasing a bomb. They were successful in getting him the puck, but were still not able to get one past Allen.
“With the best shot in the league, we obviously want to use it,” said Forsberg. “With a bunch of shots there, we should have a scored. A bunch of shots from him and Ribeiro had an open net there too. Sometimes you get that close, sometimes you don’t and it could have turned the game around for us.”
In almost every major category on the stat sheet aside from the score, Nashville won the battle. This includes shots, hits and face offs. The loss was certainly not for lack of opportunity, but more in that they faced a goaltender that was extremely in the zone.
“He made some really good saves a bunch of times,” said Forsberg on Jake Allen. “I think it’s really hard to come up with something else that we could have done. Maybe more screening and stuff, but I think we did that pretty alright, too.”
With such an overall strong performance aside from the score and final result, the Predators will have to quickly put this behind them and prepare for the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday night.
“We played really well and we have a lot of stuff to take with us, but tightening up a little bit defensively is the key,” said Forsberg.
Get more post game information with video from head coach Peter Laviolette below:
