Pius Suter’s goal with 99 seconds remaining in regulation was the difference as the visiting Vancouver Canucks claimed a 1-0 victory over the Nashville Predators on Friday night and clinched their Western Conference first-round series.
Goaltender Arturs Silovs, Vancouver’s third-string netminder making only his third career playoff start and 10th career outing, made 27 saves for his first shutout as the Canucks won the best-of-seven series in six games.
Prior to standing strong during a frantic finish, Silovs also came up with especially notable dandy saves on Jason Zucker and Ryan O’Reilly.
The Canucks, who won the Pacific Division title in the regular season, will have home-ice advantage when they face the Edmonton Oilers in the Western Conference semifinals.
Predators goaltender Juuse Saros stopped 28 shots in arguably his best performance of the series, but it wasn’t enough.
Suter, who was denied on a couple of golden opportunities earlier in the game, and was visibly frustrated, finally cracked the goose eggs with overtime looming.
From the end boards, Brock Boeser fired a no-look pass to the front of the net and Suter converted the one-timer for his second goal of the series.
Nashville was awarded a power play with 33.9 seconds remaining but could not find the equalizer. A couple of chances just missed the net or were blocked.
It was the second consecutive game of the series with no scoring in the first two periods, in big part due to the close-checking style both clubs used as well as the netminders.
For his part, Saros was especially strong starting about midway through the second period. He denied J.T. Miller on a second-period rush as well as Suter on the rebound. Saros made a couple of other clutch stops, notably Boeser’s opportunity during an odd-man rush
The Predators had their chances. Nashville, which failed to score even one power-play goal on home ice during the series, wasted a second-period four-minute advantage.
–Field Level Media
