PRED ALERT!
Nashville cruises to big win and evens Cup final.
It was before Game 4 that Wayne Gretzky was asked why it was so much harder to score these days, and he lauded the kids these days before saying, essentially, goaltending. He also mentioned how coaching had changed and creativity had been turned into a two-way game — “two of the better defensive players today are Connor McDavid and Auston Matthews, and they’re 19 years old and 20 years old,” he said. But goaltending, for Gretzky, was the key.
And then the Nashville Predators and Pekka Rinne proved it, and took Game 4 by a score of 4-1 to even this Stanley Cup final at two games apiece. This was prob- ably Pittsburgh’s best game of the Cup final, a show of desperation and smarts, and they still wound up swimming in an ocean of sound from the giddy, howling, pro wrestling-style Nashville crowd.
The Penguins played with the desperation of a team that knew it had been run over for three straight games, and somehow managed to win two of them. But Nashville opened the scoring: Pittsburgh’s Olli Maatta failed on a clearing attempt, and Calle Jarnkrok corralled a rebound as penalties went uncalled, probably in Nashville’s favour. The crowd told Penguins goaltender Matt Murray that he sucked and it was all his fault, and it was all happening again.
Except Pittsburgh wasn’t getting smashed: they allowed good chances, but spent far more time somewhere other than their own zone. And with four minutes left in the period Nashville’s Roman Josi went roaming up ice, and nobody noticed as Sidney Crosby snuck behind Ryan Ellis and took a sharp pass from Brian Dumoulin, and he flattened Pekka Rinne with a pair of fakes and finally a patient backhand that went in off the post and Rinne’s pad. It was Cros- by’s first Cup final goal in 13 games, and his second in 20. It was 1-1.
Crosby was a force of nature, batting pucks out of the air with precision, or chasing them down.
In the second period he dug out a puck and got it to Jake Guentzel in the slot, but Rinne was there.
Right after that Chris Kunitz was sent away on a breakaway, and Rinne stopped him, too. The 34year-old goaltender was the culprit for Nashville’s first two losses in Pittsburgh; he was making the saves he had to, now.
The game hinged on them. Right after the Kunitz save, Nashville took the puck the other way and rookie Frederick Gaudreau, who doesn’t even have a proper locker in the Predators room because there isn’t enough room, wrapped the puck around and in. It was his third goal of the Cup final, and of his career, and nobody had done that since Johnny Harms for Chicago in 1944. It was 2-1.
You need goalies. Crosby got another breakaway, this time with less room, and after he was stopped he popped a rebound shot back between his legs, and Bryan Rust got it into the crease, and Josi — who had been travelling up ice again — kept the puck from Guentzel’s stick just long enough for Rinne to dive across like he was trying to protect the rest of the squadron from a grenade. It stayed out.
Four minutes later Victor Arvidsson exploded up the middle like a Swedish rocket and made it 3-1 after Evgeni Malkin couldn’t corral a puck in the neutral zone and James Neal and Mike Fisher dove to chip the puck forward. It was Arvidsson’s first goal since Game 4 of the first round, on a night where he looked fantastic.
So yes, Pittsburgh’s Kris Letangless defensive corps is still so full of holes, but they slowed down the game and had a real chance. But Nashville got the saves they needed and Pittsburgh did not, and that’s why the Predators aren’t facing an elimination game on Thursday. Instead, they have turned this series, and not because P.K. Subban taunted Crosby with that bad breath accusation, and then arrived at the morning skate with a bag full of Listerine. Rinne made 23 saves, and Nashville won.
Before the game Gretzky made an appearance as part of the league’s fan poll that named his 1984-85 Oilers the greatest team of all time, a decision which all of Montreal and Gretzky himself disagreed with, but there you are. Charles Barkley dropped by and helpfully slammed the NBA playoffs while lauding hockey, and Gretzky talked about the state of the game.
“The game now is so structured,” Gretzky said. “… They’re taught so much today in the game on the defensive side of the puck. So the way the game is now, it’s much more defensive. It’s harder to score 40 goals now than it was when we played, and I’m the first guy to acknowledge that. I came along in the right era. I played with the right organization and the right players at the right time.”
He is a huge part of hockey’s strange historical symmetry: The Oilers had Gretzky and now have McDavid, and the Penguins had Mario Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr and now have Crosby and Malkin. But this may not be the right time for Pittsburgh, defending champs or not. This time, it might belong to somebody else.