Yaroslav Askarov made his Bridgestone Arena debut and Gustav Nyquist and Ryan O’Reilly each scored, but the Nashville Predators fell to the Carolina Hurricanes by a 5-2 final on Wednesday evening.
“It was frustrating,” O’Reilly said. “I thought we started good and we did some good things. I didn’t really like a few of those calls, I thought it wasn’t really truthful to the game and kind of gave them the lead… The penalty kill wasn’t our best, and we had a few bad bounces there too, which just kind of sparked them and obviously they play well with a lead. But it’s disappointing. We’re better than that, and I know myself, I’m better than that.”
“I think the emotions got the best of us a little bit,” Predators Head Coach Andrew Brunette said. “We were maybe a little bit sloppy in those penalties, maybe a little sloppy in some of our puck-moving ability. But I was watching the games before our game, and it’s all over the League. You have three days off, and you expect a little bit, but I loved our energy tonight, and it’s too bad it didn’t carry over to certain parts of our game.”
The result handed Nashville their first consecutive losses since early December and moved the team to 19-16-0 on the season.
