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Despite giving up four goals to the lowly San Jose Sharks in the first period — and at one point trailing 5-1 in the contest — the Nashville Predators found a way to get a massive 7-5 win in front of the home crowd at Bridgestone Arena on Tuesday night.
The Predators scored six unanswered goals to secure the victory, in the process making impressive franchise history.
“Jonathan Marchessault (1-3—4) factored on four of Nashville’s six unanswered tallies as the hosts rallied from a 5-1 deficit to earn their first four-goal comeback win in franchise history,” wrote NHL Public Relations on Wednesday morning. “The Predators owned an all-time record of 0-173-0 in 173 games where they faced a four-goal deficit before Tuesday.”
Things certainly looked bleak after Sharks forward Mikael Granlund scored San Jose's fifth goal of the contest on a powerplay just over four minutes into the second period.
But it was all Nashville after that. The Predators scored twice in the middle frame to cut the lead to 5-3, and put another four past Alexandar Georgiev in the third period.
Marchessault was the catalyst in the thrilling come-from-behind victory, and he's now recorded at least a point in 17 of his last 18 games dating back to December 10. The 34-year-old is riding a nine-game point streak, and continues to lead the way for the surging Predators.
Things are looking up for Predators after horrible first half
The first half of the campaign was a nightmare for Andrew Brunette's club; Nashville began the year with five straight losses and were 11-20-7 on New Year's Eve. But January has been the best month of the team's season, with the Predators in the midst of a four-game winning streak.
With six victories in eight tries in 2025, the magic number for a wildcard spot in the Western Conference is down to just 10 points.
“It’s huge,” Marchessault said afterwards, per NHL.com's Robby Stanley. “It’s the first time we have four straight wins this year, so it’s something we can definitely build on. I think everybody’s playing some decent hockey. We were really unfortunate at the beginning of the year so we don’t have a big margin of error right now, so it’s something we need to be aware of, and you just take it one game at a time, and you never know what can happen.”
Although the odds were firmly stacked against Smashville after a ghastly first period, the resilience the team showed should be encouraging for the entire organization going forward.
“I think it’s hard to make sense of it, but obviously huge comeback for us,” said captain Roman Josi. “Not a good start, obviously … That was a bad first period. But we found a way and we talked about it in the room, we’ve got to believe that we can come back from this. Early in the year, we didn’t do that, and to be able to come back is pretty huge for us for our confidence that we know we can do it.”
In the midst of their best stretch of the season, the Predators will look to make it five straight against these same Sharks — this time in San Jose — on Thursday night.
