Nashville, TN – The Nashville Predators held a three goal lead after two periods of play, only to fall in overtime to the Calgary Flames, 6-5 in Nashville. It was a stunned Smashville crowd that headed for the exits when Mathew Tkachuk slipped the game winner past Pekka Rinne as the buzzer sounded to end the extra period.
The Predators were in full command of this one right from the start. Nick Bonino continued his scoring onslaught as he gave Nashville the early 1-0 lead, just 5:33 into the opening period. The Bonino backhand slipped past David Rittich and that gave Bonino four goals in his last four shots, including the hat trick on Tuesday night against the Blackhawks.
But not so fast, as Derek Ryan set up at the bottom of the circle and took a pass from Tkachuk and flipped the wrist shot past Rinne, to pull the Flames to within a goal, 2-1 at 15:27.
Into the second period and Callie Jarnkrok, who was replaced on the first line by the return of Filip Forsberg, took a pass from Austin Watson on the shorthanded breakaway, and fired a wrist shot past Rittich and the Predators regained the two goal advantage, 3-1.
Then at the 18:52 mark of the second period it was Jarnkrok again on another two on one shorthanded break taking another feed from Watson to net his second “shorty” of the game and Nashville had a 4-1 lead.
The third period began and you could tell that the Flames were a different team that took the ice as they dominated the offensive pressure on the Predators, leading to a Rasmus Andersson wrist shot that bounced off of Rinne’s glove into the net and the Flames trailed, 4-2.
At the 13:38 mark of the final period, Elias Lindholm snagged a pass from Sean Monahart and fired a shot that deflected off of Roman Josi’s stick into the net and suddenly the Flames were within a goal, 4-3. It was Lindholm’s 100th NHL goal.
The Predators just couldn’t get their offensive game going in the third as Calgary continued to pressure the Nashville defense. At 16:39 Alan Quine fired a one-timer from the top of the circle that beat Rinne and the game was tied, 4-4.
The Predators then turned around and seemed to regain the advantage at 18:38 when Austin Watson took a Colton Sissons pass and scored into a wide open Calgary net to give the Predators a 5-4 lead.
But wait….there’s more!
With just 39 seconds left in regulation, the Flames pulled their goalie for the man advantage and Mathew Tkachuk tied the game as he jammed a rebound into the Nashville net to tie the game, 5-5.
In probably one of the most exciting games of this 2019 season, the overtime period was a bit of back and forth with Calgary firing four shots on goal to Nashville’s two. Then it was Tkachuk, again, who took the puck in the final seconds of the overtime and slipped a between the legs shot past Rinne for the 6-5 win.
The stunned Bridgestone Arena crowd couldn’t believe what had just happened as the Predators skated off of the ice.
Nashville will host a Saturday matinee game against the New York Rangers at 1:00pm in Downtown Nashville.
