The Nashville Predators preseason has officially come to a close.
For the second time this preseason, the Predators needed overtime, tied 2-2, with the Carolina Hurricanes. It was a big hit by Joakim Kemell and a one-timer goal by the Finn the following shift that proved to be the difference in a 3-2 victory.
Jonathan Marchessault scored on the power play to give the Predators a 1-0 lead in the first, and Tyson Jost scored his first unofficial goal as a Nashville Predator to make it 2-1 in the second period.
Nashville wraps up the preseason with a 3-2-1 record. It’s their first winning preseason record since 2022.
Here are three things we saw in the Predators final game of the preseason against the Hurricanes.
The Predators’ third period and early parts of overtime were lackluster to say the least. Nashville was struggling to generate any offense and was getting sloppy with its play.
It was a blind, backhanded pass attempt from Marchessault along the boards that led to Carolina scoring the game-tying goal with five minutes left in the third period. In overtime, Nashville was again struggling to generate chances until Joakim Kemell hit the ice.
He delivered a booming hit to Carolina’s Andrei Svechnikov at center ice, causing Sebastian Aho to react and commit an unsportsmanlike misconduct penalty.
14 seconds into the power play, with 16 seconds left in overtime, Kemell got a pass from Brady Skjei and let a one-time shot go from the right side of the face-off circle that beat goalie Pyotr Kochetkov high glove-side for the OT winner.
“It’s just a part of me. I like to play hard and I like to hit,” Kemell said. “Good hit. Good goal. I like to shoot, so I hit the net and I can score sometimes.”
Predators head coach Andrew Brunette said that there are going to be some “hard decisions” to make regarding which wingers Nashville wants to keep on the roster. Kemell’s overtime performance may have just cemented him a roster spot.
“It was a heck of an overtime. I don’t know how many seconds he played, but they were pretty impactful,” Brunette said about Kemell. “I’ve seen a lot of things, but I don’t think I’ve seen a hit like that in 3-on-3. Then, to get a goal after they were trying to get at him, was pretty fun to be a part of.”
More and more trust is being instilled in the Predators’ 2025 fifth overall pick, Brady Martin, as he centers the first line alongside Filip Forsberg and Ryan O’Reilly.
“He does so many things well,” O’Reilly said about Martin. “The way he reads the game, the plays he makes, his vision out there finding guys. It’s exciting to see, especially him being a young kid coming in and not having played at this level very long.”
“Every day he’s getting more comfortable making things happen.”
The trio didn’t score, but logged the second most ice time of the night at 11:37 minutes.
O’Reilly also talked about Martin’s abilities at the face-off circle and said he did a solid job. He even went as far as saying that O’Reilly could’ve helped Martin get a higher face-off percentage in the game.
Martin won 37.5 of his face-offs as the Predators won nearly 60% of the overall face-offs on the night.
“I lost a lot of draws for him on those 50/50 pucks that I normally win,” O’Reilly said. “He would’ve been better in the circle if I had helped him out a little bit more. I’m still getting used to the wing, so I’ll blame it on that.”
Slopiness was abundant for the Predators in the third period as they gave away the puck 13 times for a total of 24 times on the night. The Hurricanes ‘ game-tying goal was scored off a Marchessault turnover in the Predators’ zone.
Not long after that, Marchessault turned over the puck again, which led to a Carolina rush going the other way. Roman Josi and Adam Wilsby gave away the puck six combined times.
While the Predators were able to make up for it in overtime, this could’ve been costly. The preseason results don’t count, but establishing good habits is beneficial to put in place ahead of the regular season.
Still, the Predators found a way to win against the Hurricanes squad that brought most of its talent to Nashville. The Predators have not seen a lot of that at Bridgestone Arena this preseason as the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning brought depleted rosters in their matchups.
“It’s hard to put a whole lot of stock in exhibition games, but that was an NHL team that we played and a good one,” Brunette said. “It was a fast team that was going to test us in a bunch of different areas, and I thought we handled the test. There are some things we can definitely clean up a little bit, but lots of good.”
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