Nashville Predators' Pekka Rinne puts Detroit Red Wings on brink with 3-1 win -NHL Playoffs Update
Nashville did not care whether Detroit was the team with the best home record during the 2011-2012 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season, which certainly showed as veteran goalie, Pekka Rinne, blocked 40 shots to lift Predators to a 3-1 victory and
put Red Wings on the brink of elimination.
Since Detroit managed to only win the second game of the 2012 NHL Western Conference playoff quarterfinal series against Nashville, the Predators are now leading 3-1 and having the next at home at the Bridgestone Arena, it is a real possibility that Red
Wings will be playing their last.
"Now we're in a tough situation," Red Wings captain, Nicklas Lidstrom, said. "We've got to go down to Nashville and win one game."
Instead of Red Wings improving their game and rebounding, constant improvement could be seen on the Nashville side as the Predators defenders continuously blocked pucks and diverted traffic as much as possible from Rinne.
"We weren't very happy with the first and second," Rinne said. "They had too many shots, too many scoring chances. We buckled down in the third period."
After a scoreless 40 minute game, both teams decided to get down and dirty in round three as Nashville burst with three goals from Gabriel Bourque, followed by a minor interference from Detroit’s Jiri Hudler on the power play, but Kevin Klein and David Legwand
added two more to insure the match.
"We had a lot of chances that we didn't score on," Detroit’s veteran defenseman, Nicklas Lidstrom, said. "We finally got one on the power play, but we needed another goal and we couldn't get it. We hit the post there late in the game."
Surprisingly, Nashville had just 17 shots compared to Detroit’s 41 attempts throughout the matchup and still managed to steal the contest from a well playoff experienced Red Wings team.
With the next game in Nashville, Detroit Red Wings will have to try extra hard in order to get back in the series and stay alive for at least a game 6 competition. Game 5 is scheduled for Friday, April 20.
It will certainly be exciting to see which team comes on top as the series progresses.
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