After a tumultuous 24 hours, the Pittsburgh Penguins really needed a win – literally and figuratively – on Saturday against the Nashville Predators.
And that’s exactly what they earned.
The Penguins defeated the Predators, 3-0, in commanding fashion, controlling play almost entirely for the final 50 minutes of the game. They played a simple, straightforward game despite the emotional toll of the last 24 hours, which included the trade that sent defenseman Marcus Pettersson and forward Drew O’Connor – both longtime Penguins – to the Vancouver Canucks.
The win was a complete, spirited effort from up and down the lineup, and they were happy to put together a great effort given the circumstances.
“We didn’t really have time to think about it, honestly,” said goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic, who posted his first shutout this season with a 25-save effort. “Maybe, it was kind of nice the way it turned out. It happened so late. Then, you get the news this morning. Then, you’ve just got to go out and play today. I thought we did a great job of just focusing on our job tonight and just getting two points.”
Not only was this a cathartic win for the Penguins, it was also an important one. Several of the teams they’re chasing in the standings that played on Saturday – the Boston Bruins, New York Islanders, and Ottawa Senators – all won as well, so it was important to keep pace with the rest of the Eastern Conference to give themselves a chance at climbing back into the playoff race.
“It’s huge,” Nedeljkovic said. “Every game now is important. Not that they weren’t before, but we dug ourselves a hole again. We know what it’s going to take to get out of it. We’ve got to bring our A game every single night, and if we don’t have it, we’ve got to find a way to win with our B game. And we can’t have much worse than that, quite frankly. We’ve got to bring it every night. That’s what it’s going to take.
“It’s not going to be easy. It’s going to be really hard. It’s going to be a lot of work, and it’s going to take a lot of discipline and paying attention to details the rest of the way. All we can do is focus on one game at a time. We’ll take the day off [Sunday], get back to practice Monday, and whoever we play on Tuesday, we’ll deal with them on Tuesday.”
The scoring kicked off exactly halfway through the first period, when ex-Predator Philip Tomasino rifled a shot past Juuse Saaros on the Penguins’ first power play of the game. Sidney…