The Montreal Canadiens will continue their push for a playoffs as they visit the struggling Nashville roasts on Sunday.
The Canadian (37-30-9, 83 points) arrives at Music City, which rides on a winning line with four games extended with a 3-2 home victory over the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday.
Montreal dragged 1-0 and entered the third period but counted three consecutive goals to earn the victory.
“What we said was to remain patience,” said the Brendan Gallagher. “We knew we had it in this room. We can score goals. Just stay patient, stick to our game plan.”
The Canadiens hold the Eastern Conference’s second joke card and have a four -point lead on the New York Rangers in the race. Both clubs have six games left in the regular season.
The winning line has seen Captain Nick Suzuki take his game to another level. Suzuki netted the game -winning goal and an assist and increased both his goal coring and scoring stripes to four matches where he has netted five goals and nine points.
“He is still young and he plays with two young players,” said coach Martin St. Louis and referred to Cole Caufield and Juraj Slafkovsky. “When they all mature together, get older, it will only get better. What is his roof? I do not know, but I do not want to think about his roof because I want him to dictate what the roof will be.”
The predators return home after suffering a 5-1 loss to Dallas Stars on Thursday, who runs their latest losing slide to five matches.
Nashville (27-41-8, 62 points) has long been eliminated from the playoffs and had very little pushback to end the season on a strong note or even play spoiler.
The predators had an overly acquainted performance in this disappointing campaign when they met against the Dallas stars.
“They are a really good offensive rush hour, and we did not give them much during the first (period),” said ahead Steven Stamkos about the latest loss. “And then type of halfway through the game, you can say that we started turning some pucks and feeding their rush. It felt like it was a matter of time before it burned us, and it did.”
Nashville coach Andrew Brunette was not on Saturday’s exercise because of a personal question, and there was no word if he were back with the team in time for the game.
The game can highlight the NHL debut 2023 First draft of Pick Matthew Wood, 6-foot-5 ahead that signed a starting contract in the last week after completing its season at the University of Minnesota.
“I’ve grown in many ways,” said Wood, who chose the 15th overall. “I have become much stronger skating edge, become faster and more mobile. … One of my strengths is that I love to learn, and I will always try to continue to learn. This is a huge learning opportunity for me.”
-Field Level Media
