04 start equals San Jose’s worst
NASHVILLE — Roman Josi scored two goals to lead the Nashville Predators to a 52 victory over the visiting San Jose Sharks on Tuesday night.
The Sharks (04) tied their worst start to a season in franchise history. San Jose also began a season with four straight losses in 199394.
“It’s the goals against that are killing us,” said San Jose forward Evander Kane, who was playing his first game after serving a threegame suspension for physical abuse of officials. “... They’re just blatant giveaways. We’ve got to figure out how we want to play.”
Kyle Turris, Filip Forsberg and Dante Fabbro also scored for the Predators, who have won two of three to start the season.
Brent Burns had a goal and an assist and Kane also scored for the struggling Sharks.
Josi scored the game’s first two goals, opening the scoring early in the opening period. Colton Sissons carried the puck into the San Jose zone. From the right faceoff dot, he found Josi skating through the slot with a pass. Josi beat Sharks goaltender Martin Jones with a wrist shot high to the stick side.
“When things are not really going your way, you try sometimes and maybe do a little bit too much,” Sharks defenseman Erik Karlsson said. “I think that today we had longer periods of time where we were controlling the play and playing the way that we want, but I don't think that we started the way that we wanted. We were on our heels a little bit too much.”
Kane halved the Predators’ lead at 15:12 of the second on the power play, deflecting Logan Couture’s shot from above the left faceoff circle past Nashville goaltender Pekka Rinne for his first of the season. It was the Sharks’ first manadvantage goal of the season.
Turris gave Nashville another twogoal advantage early in the third with a wrist shot over Jones’ glove off a bank pass from Rocco Grimaldi.
The goal was Turris’ first of the season. He scored seven last season, during which he played in 55 games with two stints on injured reserve.
Forsberg found the net at 7:24 of the third, set up by Matt Duchene, who has six assists in three games with Nashville.
Burns made it 42 at 15:37 of the third, and Fabbro added a late emptynetter.
Jones finished with 20 saves.