The Nashville Predators will look to keep their playoff hopes alive when they visit the last-place Vancouver Canucks on Thursday.
The Predators gave their late-season playoff push a boost Tuesday night with a 4-2 come-from-behind victory over Seattle, which is just one point above them in the battle for the Western Conference’s second and final wild-card spot.
“We live to fight another day,” said Nashville coach Andrew Brunette after his team rallied from a two-goal, first-period deficit with four unanswered goals.
The Predators have not won a playoff round in seven years so surpassing Seattle to snag that last wild card would be a good way to honor long-time executive Barry Trotz, who announced last month he would retire soon as general manager.
The only race the lowly Canucks have been involved in is one to the bottom of the league, shedding assets like dollar-store giveaways as they unabashedly try to increase their chances of landing the first overall draft pick, which many scouts predict will be Canadian forward Gavin McKenna.
Vancouver has looked like a rudderless ship since trading captain Quinn Hughes and leading goal scorer Kiefer Sherwood in the first half of the season. It didn’t help that they got rid of veterans Conor Garland and Tyler Myers for draft picks just before Friday’s trading deadline.
“It is tough seeing a lot of guys leave this season,” said American forward Max Sasson during Tuesday’s practice. “But at the end of the day, it is what it is.
“We have a lot of different age groups mixed in with some good veterans, who are still around. We can all step up and lead in our own way.”
The Canucks haven’t won a home game since late January and some of that has to do with having the worst penalty kill in the league with a success rate of just 70.9%. Coach Adam Foote has been experimenting with different combinations of young players on the penalty kill.
“They need the reps,” Foote said Tuesday. “You can talk about it and walk them through it in practice but they need to go out there and learn the hard way.”
Vancouver started an eight-game homestand with a 2-0 loss to Ottawa on Monday night.
The Canucks have lost nine of their last 10 (1-6-3) and have yet to win consecutive games at home this season.
Meanwhile, the Predators scored three unanswered goals in the second period to take a 3-2 lead before Steven Stamkos iced the victory with an empty-netter with five seconds left on the clock.
“Obviously, the first period wasn’t very good,” Brunette said after Tuesday’s game. “We were a little sleepy, but we dug in in the second, and I thought we had the better of them the rest of the game.”
Said Reid Schaefer, who scored one of second-period goals against Seattle to erase the deficit, “We just played to our identity in the second period. We got pucks deep, we were smart with it, had the puck protected down low, and we got to the net. It was a fun game, honestly.”
This is the third and final game this season between the Canucks and Predators after they split the first two. The Canucks won 5-4 in overtime on Nov. 4 and the Predators won 2-1 on Oct. 23.
