December 19, 2022 by Ryan Lotsberg

The Nashville Predators had lost three straight games before the Edmonton Oilers beat them last week. The Predators beat the Oilers 4-3 in overtime on Monday night, handing them their third straight loss in the process.

Call Outs:

A bad change in overtime ended up leading to the game winning goal for the Predators. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins went for a change, but Cody Glass fed Alex Carrier for a two-on-one with Matt Duchene. Carrier carried the puck to the middle and fired a shot over Jack Campbell’s glove. It was a small detail that carried a large consequence. It was a stain on an otherwise great game from Nugent-Hopkins.

Standouts:

Nugent-Hopkins scored two of the Oilers goals. Connor McDavid streaked in on the right wing and softly fed Nugent-Hopkins in the slot for his first of the night. On the second goal, McDavid recovered the puck in the corner and hit Nugent-Hopkins with a cross-seam pass. Nugent-Hopkins smoothly changed his shooting angle with a move to the middle, and he beat Jusse Saros for his 17th goal of the season.

Shout Outs:

I could’ve put McDavid in the Standouts section, but he’s always there, so I’m letting Nugent-Hopkins have the spotlight for a night. McDavid made two superb passes to Nugent-Hopkins to set up those goals though.

Campbell had an unfortunate bounce beat him on one goal, and he gambled on a poke check on Duchene and lost on another goal; but he made several fantastic saves that gave the Oilers a point in this game. He bailed Cody Ceci out after an egregious turnover at the faceoff dot. Campbell made a great read and a sliding pad save on Tanner Jeannot with a minute left in the first period. He robbed Mattias Ekholm on a rebound from Ekholm’s partial breakaway with 16:33 left in the second period. Mikael Granlund will have nightmares after Campbell managed to get a glove on his backhand that was labelled for the empty net. Finally, he showed great pad work when he stopped Glass on a rebound with 15:17 left in the game. The Oilers were loose in front of him, but Campbell kept the team in it.

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Jesse Puljujarvi busted his slump by scoring his second goal of the season. He made a nice move to get around Jeannot at the blue line, and he got the puck on net from outside the faceoff dot. It snuck its way through Saros somehow. It might not have been the prettiest goal, but Puljujarvi will take it.

Devin Shore had two great scoring chances in his 8:48 of ice time. The most dangerous of which was when he was able to turn a bouncing puck into a quick shot at Saros from just inside the bottom of the faceoff circle.

I’ll give some credit for this win to the Predators. They finally found a way to slow down Leon Draisaitl, who was held off the scoresheet. McDavid’s damage was done solely on the powerplay. The Predators did solid work in taking space away from the Oilers superstars in the neutral zone.

However, the Oilers continue to lose games because of consequential mistakes. The top line turned the puck over in the neutral zone, and it ended up in the back of the net. They had an unlucky bounce go against them. There was a bad line change in overtime. They got a goal from an unlikely source, two powerplay goals, and a good performance from their goalie. That should be enough to win a game.

The task won’t get easier for the Oilers on Wednesday night when they head to Dallas to face the Stars.