Aberg, Predators pounce on Ducks
ANAHEIM, Calif. — Pontus Aberg scored his first career playoff goal with 8:59 to play, and the Nashville Predators moved to the brink of their first Stanley Cup finals with a 3-1 victory against the Anaheim Ducks in Game 5 of the Western Conference finals last night.
Aberg scored on a rebound of Filip Forsberg’s shot for the Predators, who took a 3-2 series lead despite the injury absence of top scorer Ryan Johansen and captain Mike Fisher.
Pekka Rinne made 32 saves in the Finnish goalie’s latest dominant playoff performance in Anaheim, where the Predators have won five of their last seven playoff games over two seasons.
Chris Wagner scored for the Ducks, who lost starting goalie John Gibson to injury during the first intermission.
Game 6 is tomorrow night in Nashville.
Jonathan Bernier took over and stopped 16 shots in his first appearance in nearly two weeks for the Ducks, who already were without 30-goal scorers Rickard Rakell and Patrick Eaves before losing Gibson to a lower-body injury.
Anaheim was knocked out of the playoffs last year by Nashville, and the Ducks are facing their second elimination game of the postseason after winning Game 7 against Edmonton in the second round.
The Predators still haven’t lost back-to-back games at any point in what’s looking like a charmed playoff run for an 18-season-old franchise that’s finally one game from playing for the Stanley Cup.
After Colin Wilson scored the tying powerplay goal late in the second period for the Predators, Aberg went flying when he stretched out to guide home Forsberg’s rebound for the tiebreaker.
The 23-year-old Swede has only one goal in his 15 games of regular-season NHL experience, but Nashville’s injuries thrust him into a key role alongside Forsberg on its top line.
Austin Watson added an empty-net goal in the final minute, emphatically ending Anaheim’s streak of seven consecutive Game 5 wins at home since 2011.
Aberg and several other role players all came up big in the Predators’ first game of the season without Johansen, their top-line center and leading postseason scorer. Johansen had emergency surgery shortly after Game 4 and was ruled out for the rest of the playoffs.
The Ducks also were hurting without Rakell, a surprise omission due to a lower-body injury, and Eaves, who missed his ninth straight game. The duo combined for 65 regular-season goals.
Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf was fined $10,000 for apparently using a homophobic slur during Game 4.
The NHL announced the fine several hours before Anaheim hosted Game 5.
Getzlaf, the Ducks’ leading scorer in the postseason, avoided a suspension. He was captured by television cameras appearing to shout the inappropriate remark in frustration with an official after returning to the bench during overtime.
Last postseason, the Chicago Blackhawks’ Andrew Shaw was suspended for one game and fined $5,000 for directing a homophobic slur toward an official during a playoff game.
“Getzlaf’s comment in Thursday’s game, particularly as directed to another individual on the ice, was inappropriately demeaning and disrespectful, and crossed the line into behavior that we deem unacceptable,” said Colin Campbell, the NHL’s senior executive vice president of hockey operations. “The type of language chosen and utilized in this instance will not be tolerated in the National Hockey League.”