Nashville Predators vs. San Jose Sharks

San Jose, CA – Nashville Predators and the San Jose Sharks go into a shootout Saturday night at HP Pavilion arena.

In the third round of the shootout, Predators’ Craig Smith goes in center with some speed, shifts to his right, Sharks’ goaltender Antti Niemi moves right with him, allowing Smith to shift the puck to his left and dink it in for the goal. This put Nashville up in the shootout.

San Jose’s Joe Pavelsk, needing to score to keep the Sharks alive, goes in fast, shifts right sending the puck flying to Pekka Rinne’s glove side. Rinne makes the stop securing the win for the Predators. This was San Jose’s first loss of the year.Nashville came out playing Predators hockey and forechecked San Jose aggressively. Both teams had scoring chances, but by the end of the 2nd period the game remained scoreless.

Midway through the 2nd period, San Jose’s Ryane Clowe, from the circle, hits a shot that just slides by Rinne and into the goal post. The puck comes out to rest just outside the goal line. Martin Havlat skates through alone, thinking they had score, raising his hands in celebration. When he realizes his mistake too late and the Predators clear it out.

The Predators get on the board first when Colin Wilson intercepted a pass. He then slides the puck over to Sergei Kostitsyn who took a quick wrist shot that goes past Niemi on his glove side for the score just 59 seconds into the 3rd period.

Later, the puck gets tied up behind the goal. Scott Gomez is able to bounce it out in front of the goal and into the skates of Havlat. Havlat plays the puck nicely off his skates and backhands it home for the Sharks to tie the game 1-1 at 13:30 during a powerplay. The powerplay was created by a too many men on the ice penalty when smith fielded the puck while heading off the ice.

In overtime, with 2:48 left San Jose’s Martin Havlat is called for hooking giving the Predators a powerplay. Nashville had plenty of scoring opportunities as they put on a furious attack but San Jose was able to block their efforts sending the game to a shootout. Nashville had 2 shots on goal and San Jose had 1 during the overtime period.

Pekka Rinne gets his second win this season. Rinne made 26 saves through overtime and stopped the Sharks three attempts during the shootout.

Antti Niemi had 23 saves for the Sharks.

Next Game

The Nashville Predators head back to St. Louis to take on the Blues Tuesday, February 5th. The teams clash at 7:00pm.

Box Score