If you want to summarize the kind of night the Nashville Predators experienced, you could do worse than to draw parallels to Filip Forsberg’s experiences.
The highs were quite high, you see. Forsberg & Co. carved away at the Calgary Flames’ 4-1 lead as his hat trick (see above) eventually gave the Predators a fleeting 5-4 edge.
We all should have seen more drama coming ... and it did. Forsberg ended up being at the wrong place at the wrong time in overtime; the Flames’ 6-5 overtime winner ended up going off of his foot. Ouch.
Mark Giordano ended up being credited with that goal. The game was just a barn-burner.
Not a defensive masterpiece. Preds with 30-27(!) edge in chances, 19-19 5v5 chances. #Flames had 54.1% possession. https://t.co/o9sscfwsEC
— Pat Steinberg (@Fan960Steinberg) February 22, 2017
While it was an up-and-down night for both the Flames and Predators, Pekka Rinne’s evening was pretty much uniformly dismal.
Rinne was pulled early in the second period after giving up four goals on 13 shots, making way for Juuse Saros (who actually ended up gtting tagged with the loss).
The Flames can breathe a sigh of relief after winning the game despite coughing up a big lead, improving to 64 points and strengthening their grip on the second wild card spot. That “charity point” comes in handy for Nashville, leaving the Predators with 65 points and a game in hand on the Flames.
"Big time character." - Mark Giordano on the #Flames win tonight pic.twitter.com/uFbqC84Spy
— Calgary Flames (@NHLFlames) February 22, 2017