NHL Thursday night Match Analysis Nashville Predators vs. Detroit Red Wings 4-3
Shea Weber rocked the sold-out Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee, United States, as he picked up two straight goals in the third and final period of regulation, allowing Nashville Predators to rebound after a second period deficit to takedown the Detroit Red Wings, 4-3, Thursday night, December 15, 2011.
Being one of the National Hockey League’s (NHL) top defenseman, Shea Weber, has such qualities which coaches hope and pray for their players to have as the veteran can not only be a defender on the team's defensive end, but a top notch forward when his teammates need the boost the most as well.
"In big moments, you need your top players to step up, and Shea stepped up in a huge way today," Nashville's coach, Barry Trotz, said of his captain. "The Detroit Red Wings, the way they have been playing, they have been the top team in the league the last month anyways. They are hard to play against."
It was not long ago that Weber was having a tough time re-signing with Nashville over the 2011 NHL offseason and both stakeholders were forced to enter arbitration which awarded him one of the biggest contracts in terms of worth, this year.
For Nashville, Weber is the face of the organisation without which, picturing the Predators is near to impossible.
Tomas Holmstrom scored the go ahead goal of the night and gave Detroit an early lead during a quick power play opportunity with Ryan Suter being booked for hooking and awarded a minor penalty.
Detroit is one of the best penalty killing teams around the league which meant the Nashville Predators had to take extra care when their players would get penalised.
The Predators managed to get back in the game quick when David Legwand levelled the match with his eighth of the 2011-2012 NHL regular season, off a pass by Craig Smith and Martin Erat.
Jerred Smithson opened up another opportunity for the Red Wings when he was called for hooking at the 9:11 mark in round-two of the competition and Detroit certainly did not fail to capitalise with their second straight power play goal of the night, midway through.
Veteran Detroit defenseman and captain, Nicklas Lidstrom, proved that Detroit did not only need the added man advantage to score by adding another one, 1:30 after Zetterberg’s tie-breaker to extend the lead into a more comfortable position.
With less than three minutes to go, Jordin Tootoo ensured that Nashville would not give up without a proper fight and fired off a slap shot from nearly midway on the ice as it flew past Detroit's goalie, Jimmy Howard, which triggered the Predators' comeback.
Pekka Rinne was outshot in the Nashville net 40-21 compared to his counterpart, Jimmy Howard, but still managed to stay focused by blocking 37 of those shots while Howard fell short on four.
The single power play opportunity of the third period, 15 minutes in, worked in favour of the Nashville Predators as Shea Weber got hot with his first of the night at the 15:36 mark to level the match and force what looked like at the time as an overtime extension but following up was important to Weber who added the tie-breaker as well, nearly three minutes later to take the contest.
"They got a great bounce there at the end," Howard said. "Weber just threw a knuckle-puck on net; it bounced right in front of me and went over my shoulder."
Nashville have now won four games in a row and will be looking to continue that when they host St. Louis Blues on Saturday, while Detroit will be hosting the Los Angeles Kings the same day.
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