Desperate Predators pull out all the stops

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This article was published 30/04/2018 (2962 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NASHVILLE — With their backs already to the wall after just one game, the Nashville Predators pulled out all the stops at Bridgestone Arena Sunday night.

First, it was country music superstar Carrie Underwood with a moment of high drama, emerging from the Zamboni entrance just prior to faceoff as the surprise singer of the American anthem.

The Preds can trot out just about anyone they want to sing the anthem here in the home of country music — Dierks Bentley sang prior to Game 1; Maren Morris, Brad Paisley and Rascal Flatts sang in round one.

But it’s Underwood — the biggest star of them all and a favourite daughter as the wife of centre Mike Fisher — that the Predators save for the most special of special occasions.

With Nashville already down a game in this series after a 4-1 loss Friday night and facing the prospect of heading back to Winnipeg’s White-Out for Games 3 and 4 this week down 0-2, this was just such an occasion and Underwood did not disappoint; that the roof remained attached to Bridgestone Arena afterward is a monument to modern engineering.

No sooner did Underwood retreat to her family’s luxury box than the Preds trotted out James Shaw Jr., the civilian who made worldwide headlines last week by single-handedly disarming the Waffle House shooter who killed four people with an assault rifle near here.

The only thing Americans love more than their guns is their heroes — if they had less guns, they’d need less heroes, but I digress — and the appearance of Shaw in a Preds jersey on the big screen during a stoppage in play early in the first period had the fans back on their feet.

And then layer on top of all that the 18,000-plus blinking yellow lightsabers and 18,000 ‘No Fly Zone’ T-shirts, free gifts for every fan in attendance, and you had quite literally everything that gets Americans excited — celebrities, guns, heroes, shiny things and T-shirts with slogans on them — all rolled up into one neat package for a night.

Throw in a hockey team in the Predators that was the best in the entire NHL this regular season — and that’s what it felt like at various points on an over-caffeinated night, like the local hockey team was a throw-in — and, well, that’s a lot to go up against all in one night for our modest little hockey team from our modest little prairie town.

And in the end, it was precisely that — a little too much for the Winnipeg Jets on a night the margin of difference in a 5-4 Nashville win didn’t come until 5:37 of double overtime when Nashville’s Kevin Fiala took a pass from linemate Craig Smith and beat Jets netminder Connor Hellebuyck for the winner.

It was a stinging loss for the Jets and unlike the regular season,when the loser in overtime still gets a point, there was no consolation prize to be had at the end of this exceptionally long night.

What could have been a 2-0 stranglehold on this series for the Jets heading home is now instead a series tied at 1-1 and now reduced to a best-of-five, with a Jets team that has won 12 in a row at home now holding the all-important home ice advantage.

But as stinging as Sunday’s loss was for the Jets, it should be heartening to both the team and their fans that on a night the Predators threw literally everything they had — on the ice and off of it — at Winnipeg, that’s what it took for the Predators to win: literally everything they had. And, even then, just barely.

For the record, the Jets played a lot better here Sunday night in a loss than they did Friday night in a 4-1 win that saw them get outplayed and hopelessly outshot all night long.

Winnipeg outshot the Predators 50-41 on Sunday, led the game 2-1 at the first period intermission and showed no quit all night long, coming back from third period deficits of 3-2 and 4-3 to send the game to overtime in the first place.

Put it all together and what emerged from the last couple days down here is that this young Jets team is not going to be intimidated by this stage.

While they were the third-youngest team in the NHL this season and came into these playoffs with very little post-season experience, the poise these Jets demonstrated in what can only be described as an exceptionally hostile environment the last couple games answers a lot of questions about an exceptional Winnipeg team hoping to make a deep playoff run.

If ever this young Jets team was going to wilt under the pressure, you would have thought it might have been down here the last couple games, up against the league’s best in a very difficult building in which to play and with the gaze of an entire country now on them since the Toronto Maple Leafs were eliminated and the Jets became Canada’s team.

But if they’re feeling the pressure, I’ve seen no evidence of it. Netminder Connor Hellebuyck is still unflappable. Patrik Laine — who had two assists and rang a post Sunday night — is still playing loose and free. Young role players like Brandon Tanev, who scored his third of the playoffs in the third period Sunday night, are finding a new level to their game.

And Mark Scheifele, with his seventh and eighth goals of the playoffs Sunday night — including the equalizer in regulation with barely a minute to play — is looking every bit like a guy who is wired to thrive in these big moments.

If this was supposed to be the Jets’ post-season dress rehearsal — the one where they get a round or two under their belts and bank some badly needed experience for a deeper playoff run the next time around — someone forgot to tell, well, the Jets.

The NHL’s best team during the regular season threw everything they had at the Jets the last two games — including Carrie Underwood, a uniquely American hero, flashing lights and free t-shirts — and all it got them was a split.

The Jets — and this series — are now headed home to Manitoba.

It won’t be as flashy, but it will be very white. And a whole lot friendlier.

email: paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @PaulWiecek