It was a frustrating night for the visiting Columbus Blue Jackets, who fell 2-1 to the Nashville Predators in their season opener on Thursday night. Juuse Saros stole the game for Nashville, stopping 37 of 38 shots and keeping the Predators in it all night long.
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Defenseman Damon Severson had a solid game, recording an assist, and showed flashes of his two-way game. Jet Greaves was also strong in net for Columbus, turning aside 29 of 31 shots and keeping his team in it until the end.
Dmitri Voronkov scored the lone goal for the Blue Jackets, while Michael Bunting and Ryan O’Reilly found the back of the net for Nashville. O’Reilly’s power-play goal early in the third period stood as the game-winner.
First Period
The Predators opened the scoring just over five minutes in when Bunting buried a loose puck off a broken play that bounced off a few Blue Jackets defenders.
Kirill Marchenko was active early, generating three or four high-danger looks right off the bat, but was unable to finish. Columbus tied the game later in the period when Severson’s wrister from the blue line was redirected in front by Voronkov to make it 1-1.
Through 20 minutes, the Blue Jackets led 11-7 in shots, with five of them coming from Marchenko.
Second Period
With 17.1 seconds left in the middle frame, Mathieu Olivier appeared to give the Blue Jackets the lead by cleaning up a rebound from another Severson shot. However, the goal was waved off for goaltender interference, a call Olivier clearly disagreed with, as he felt he had been pushed into Saros.
Columbus continued to control the play, outshooting Nashville 28-17 after two periods and creating the better scoring chances, but Saros held firm to keep it tied heading into the third.
Third Period
Zach Aston-Reese took a tripping penalty early in the third, putting the Predators on their fourth power play of the night. They capitalized when O’Reilly roofed a backhander all alone in tight to give Nashville a 2-1 lead.
Greaves made several impressive saves down the stretch to keep Columbus close, but Saros stood tall at the other end. Marchenko finished with eight shots on goal, all turned away.
Columbus went 0-for-1 on the power play and 3-for-4 on the penalty kill. The Blue Jackets played hard, generated plenty of looks, and defended well overall, but had some trouble clearing pucks from their own zone and couldn’t finish on their best chances.
The two teams will meet one more time this season, in Columbus on March 3 at 7:00 PM ET.
The Blue Jackets will face the Minnesota Wild on the road Saturday night, at 8:00 PM ET, which Elvis Merzlikins will start. The Predators will host the Utah Mammoth Saturday night at 7:00 PM CT.
