Pete Weber’s Postgame Report
Viktor Arvidsson of the Nashville Predators
Viktor Arvidsson scored twice and Filip Forsberg’s three points helped lead the Nashville Predators to a 6-2 victory over the San Jose Sharks on Saturday night at Bridgestone Arena. The triumph was Nashville’s 25th of the season and snapped a three-game home winless streak for the club.
“Everybody chipped in and did their thing,” Arvidsson said. “We won as a team, and that’s great. Pekka [Rinne] made huge saves and everybody played great.”
James Neal gave the Preds a 1-0 lead, when he finished off a beautiful pass from Ryan Johansen and beat Martin Jones through the five hole for a goal. Johansen corralled the puck behind the San Jose net and dished a backhand feed to Neal in the left face-off circle after a silky spin off a defender to create space. The goal was Neal’s 19th of the season and Johansen’s helper gave him 13 points in 13 games in a Preds uniform.
“San Jose is a good team, and at times they were outplaying us, but when we were on our game and when we executed, we finished off plays,” Johansen said. “You could see the smiles on guys and the confidence growing from that. So it was fun out there tonight.”
Johansen picked up another helper in the second period, when he found Calle Jarnkrok all alone in the slot. Jones got a piece of Jarnkrok’s wrist shot, but not enough, as the puck went up into the air and came back down behind the goal line. Jarnkrok’s ninth of the season gave Nashville a 2-0 lead before Joe Thornton got San Jose on the board with a power-play goal.
However, before the frame was out, Arvidsson converted on a play that could’ve gone wrong, but turned out so right. Arvidsson received a pass from Mike Ribeiro – who played in his 1,000th career game on Saturday – while skating backward into the offensive zone and managed to rifle a shot, while falling to his knees, over the shoulder of Jones for a 3-1 advantage. Forsberg recorded the secondary assist on the play for his 100th career point.
“It was huge,” Forsberg said of the win. “It’s going to be important all the way down – every goal, every game, especially these games at home in the conference. It was a big game… We played a really solid 60-minute game.”
The final frame brought points 101 and 102 for Forsberg as he potted a shorthanded goal at 6:51 for the Frosty goal and a 4-1 Preds lead. Arvidsson then claimed his second of the evening, as he and Forsberg converted on a 2-on-1 to put the game out of reach. Captain Shea Weber added an empty-net goal for his 14th tally of the season before the game was out, giving Nashville their 57th and 58th points.
“Confidence is a contagious thing, and you can get on a little bit of a roll. We have to make sure [we keeping improving],” Head Coach Peter Laviolette said. “It’s not going to be an easy game against Washington [on Tuesday]. They’re one of the best teams in the League, so we have to be ready to go.” That Tuesday game will be broadcast on Thunder Radio immediately following Coffee County basketball.
