The Nashville Predators look to continue their successful road trip when they visit the San Jose Sharks on Sunday night.
The Predators extended their winning streak to seven games with a 3-2 shootout victory at the Vegas Golden Knights on Friday.
The Sharks will be playing the second half of a back-to-back set after rallying from a 3-1 first-period deficit to earn a 6-5 shootout win Saturday night at the Utah Mammoth. San Jose’s last three games have gone to a shootout, with the Sharks winning two.
San Jose opens a four-game homestand Sunday and will look to continue its rebound after a five-game losing streak.
Defenseman Dmitry Orlov collected a goal and three assists and Tyler Toffoli had one of each for San Jose, which recovered after giving up the tying goal late in the third period.
“Sometimes it’s not easy and right now we’re struggling as a team but today is a big win and hopefully tomorrow we’re going to show up and play an even better game,” Orlov said.
Defenseman Eric Pohlkamp scored his first NHL goal, Adam Gaudette and Zack Ostapchuk also tallied and Yaroslav Askarov made 27 saves. Macklin Celebrini and Mason Marchment each scored in the shootout.
“An ugly one to be honest with you,” coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “Back and forth, it went and found a way.”
Gaudette and Ostapchuk scored six seconds apart in the second period, the fastest two goals in team history.
Toffoli has two goals and two assists in his past four games.
Against the Golden Knights, Ryan O’Reilly scored his second goal of the game to tie it 2-2 at 9:44 of the third period. Filip Forsberg and captain Roman Josi scored in the shootout and Juuse Saros made 40 saves.
“Saros was unbelievable,” Forsberg said. “Especially given the first half of the game, and you know, he kept us in (the game) and then set us up for the shootout and made some crazy extra saves in the shootout as well.”
Josi has 21 assists through the first 20 games of the season, the most by a Predators player in franchise history through that span. He has eight points (one goal, seven assists) in his past six games.
Nashville tied Carolina for the longest winning streak in the NHL this season and has two games remaining on its five-game road trip, which concludes Tuesday night in Minnesota.
“Fight for the feeling,” coach Andrew Brunette said of continuing the streak. “I think it’s such a great feeling – probably the best feeling in the world. We get another road game on Sunday and just try to maybe capitalize on the week here.”
In the teams’ first meeting on Oct. 15, San Jose won 3-2 in a shootout at Nashville. Celebrini scored the only goal of the shootout and Alex Nedeljkovic made 32 saves.
O’Reilly and Steven Stamkos each scored a goal and Saros made 30 saves for the Predators.
–Field Level Media
