Pair Of Controversial Penalty Calls Cost Nashville Predators Win To Devils | Recap

A pair of calls on the Nashville Predators down the stretch proved costly in a 4-2 loss to the New Jersey Devils on Thursday at Bridgestone Arena. 

Halfway through the third period, Fedor Svechkov was called for tripping on Jack Hughes, seeing Svechkov partially make contact with Hughes on a poke check.

While that was killed, Matthew Wood was later called for tripping on Evgenii Dadonov, another call that was heavily disputed by the Predators. 

Western Conference Wild Card Standings

• WC1: Utah Mammoth - 80 PTS (vs. Washington)
• WC2: Nashville Predators - 77 PTS (vs. New Jersey, L 4-2)
• 1. Seattle Kraken - 74 PTS (vs. Tampa, W 4-3 OT)
• 2. Los Angeles Kings - 74 PTS (vs. Vancouver)
• 3. Winnipeg Jets - 72 PTS (vs. Colorado, L 3-2)
• 4. San Jose Sharks - 71 PTS (vs. St. Louis, L 2-1 OT)

Nico Hischier tipped in a shot from Jack Hughes on the power play to give the Devils the go-ahead goal. Timo Meier added an empty net goal in the final minute to ensure the win. 

"It's frustrating and it pisses me off a little bit the way that the game ended on that power play goal," Steven Stamkos said.
"It's tough. The refs call what they see, no matter how much we yell and scream, then they're not changing the call once it's made." 

Stamkos did add that it was known in advance that the Devils wouldn't give the Predators much to work with on penalties. New Jersey is the least-penalized team in the NHL, with 506 total minutes, and ranks 13th in the league on the power play. 

Nashville got one power play out of the Devils on a Jonas Siegenthaler tripping call; however, it was unable to convert on the man advantage. 

"Jersey doesn't take a lot of penalties. We knew that before the game," Stamko said. "We are not gonna get a three, four, five power place. We couldn't afford to take three or four ourselves. We took two, they took one. 
It just sucks to miss out on at least a point in those situations." 

The Predators fell into a 2-0 hole early, with Jesper Bratt and Hischier scoring. 

Reid Schaefer found the back of the net on a breakaway in the second period to get the Predators on the board. It was his sixth goal of the season. 

Stamkos tied the game later in the frame, getting the puck from Luke Evangelista off a steal and scoring on the backhand to tie the game. 

On the empty net goal by the Devils, Evangelista made the save of the primary shot, but couldn't find the puck as it had dropped inbetween his legs. Eventually, Meier got to the loose puck and poked it in. 

Nashville was outshot 30-18 and lost 65% of total face-offs. Late penalties by Stamkos and Evangelista saw the Predators officially commit 26 PIM to New Jersey's two. 

"They (the officials) call what they see, and we deal with it. Unfortunately, it probably affected the outcome of the game," Predators head coach Andrew Brunette said. "We left it up to chance, and when you leave it up to chance,  there's gonna be nights like this."