Smith to the rescue for Predators
NASHVILLE, Tennessee — Craig Smith has a knack for timely goals in the playoffs and he helped the Nashville Predators avoid a very big hole heading to Dallas.
Smith scored five minutes into overtime to give the Predators a 2-1 victory over the Dallas Stars on Saturday, tying the first-round Western Conference series at 1-1.
The puck popped out around Smith’s feet and he scored his first this postseason from the inside edge of the left circle. That goal snapped a three-game playoff skid on home ice for Nashville.
“We need people to step up when you’re in a situation like that and you’re down by a game in a series and you get into overtime,” Nashville coach Peter Laviolette said. “You can just weight the two results, and we needed to get a win and we needed somebody. And it was really good for Craig.”
It was the first post-season overtime goal of Smith’s career and the third winner of his career in the playoffs. That ties him for the most in Predators’ history. Smith said it probably was one of his biggest goals.
“It was kind of a delayed reaction,” Smith said. “I think [Stars defenceman Roman] Polak knocked it down and I just tried to get a stick on it and tried to feather it in there. I don’t know how it got through, but I was able to just get a stick on something and get some traffic and get it in there.”
Rocco Grimaldi also scored for Nashville, and Pekka Rinne made 22 saves. The Predators had lost five of their last six post-season games in the place they call “Smashville.”
Jamie Benn scored for Dallas. The Stars were outshot 43-23.
“We knew we were going to get Nashville’s best and we did,” Dallas coach Jim Montgomery said. “And you know they were the better team tonight, and probably not for Bish [goalie Ben Bishop] we’re not in overtime. So we’ve got to come back and we will. We’ll be better.” Game 3 is Monday night in Dallas. The teams went to overtime twice during their five-game series during the regular season, and Dallas won the opener 3-2. So it was no surprise they went past regulation yet again.
The Stars went 0 of 6 on the man advantage after being the NHL’s 11th-best on the power play during the regular season.
After losing Game 1, the Predators came into this game having lost five of their past six playoff games on home ice. The Stars came in trying to join both St. Louis and Columbus as road teams taking a 2-0 advantage back home.
The teams fought to the first scoreless period of this young series to open the game, though the Predators killed a four-minute penalty on a double minor to Mattias Ekholm and outshot Dallas 15-9.
Dallas took the lead at 1:59 of the second when Tyler Seguin got the puck off a turnover and passed to Benn at the side of the net for the captain’s first goal this post-season.
Stars centre Mattias Janmark went to the locker room after a collision with Predators’ defenceman Dan Hamhuis into the boards. Janmark was down for a couple of minutes before being helped off the ice at 3:10. He returned later.
Nashville tied it at 3:56, with Grimaldi scoring over Bishop’s glove from right in front off a pass from Austin Watson.