The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Predators battle back to tie series 2-2
Rinne stars in goal as rookie Gaudreau scores tiebreaker.
Frederick Gaudreau sure is doing his best to earn his own locker with the Nashville Predators with a Stanley Cup Final debut for the ages.
And with Pekka Rinne turning in his best performance in this series, the Predators are going back to Pittsburgh having tied up the defending champs at 2-2, turning this into a bestof-three sprint to the Stanley Cup.
Gaudreau, an undrafted free agent playing in just his sixth postseason game, scored the go-ahead goal 3:45 into the second period, and Rinne made 23 often-spectacular saves as the Predators beat the Penguins 4-1 on Monday night.
The 24-year-old rookie only has a chair in the Predators’ locker room, but he now is the second player in NHL history to score his first three career goals in a Stanley Cup Final, joining Johnny Harms with the 1944 Blackhawks.
Calle Jarnkrok, Viktor Arvidsson and Filip Forsberg also scored for Nashville, which improved to 9-1 at home.
Sidney Crosby scored his first goal in the series after not getting a shot on goal in Game 3.
The goal was his first in the Stanley Cup Final since June 4, 2009 — a span of 12 games. The goal came after he was held without a shot for only the fifth time in his career in the playoffs.
The Penguins have lost two straight for the second time this postseason. They also lost Games 5 and 6 against Washington. Goalie Matt Murray lost consecutive games for the first time in his young career.
Game 5 is Thursday night in Pittsburgh.
Nashville tapped country singer Dierks Bentley as the latest to sing the national anthem, while country singer Jason Aldean waved the towel to rev up the crowd. Former NBA star and TV commentator Charles Barkley also was on hand, accepting NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman’s invitation to watch in person.
Rain most of Monday kept the crowd outside from reaching the more than 50,000 who turned up Saturday night for the first Stanley Cup Final game in Tennessee. Enough people turned out to fill up Broadway for three blocks with three giant TV screens, even with Nashville opening up a downtown amphitheater for fans to watch.
After the anthem, two catfish and one stuffed penguin hit the ice despite Nashville coach Peter Laviolette’s video plea earlier Monday asking fans not to throw anything.
Craig Smith, who had two of Nashville’s first six shots, ricocheted a puck off Murray’s pads that Jarnkrok tapped in at 14:51 to start the fans yelling. Pittsburgh lost a challenge for goalie interference.
Then Crosby, held without a shot for only the fifth time in the postseason in his career, tied it up on a breakaway. He skated in on Rinne, holding the puck before scoring behind the goalie’s leg just 66 seconds later for his eighth goal and 24th point of the playoffs.