(Nashville) Elias Lindholm scored 62 seconds into overtime and the Vancouver Canucks came from behind to defeat the Nashville Predators 4-3 in Game 4 of this first-round series on Sunday.
Brock Boeser scored a hat trick in the victory and the Canucks now lead 3-1. The fifth duel will take place Tuesday in Vancouver.
Boeser opened the scoring at 2:55 in the first period, then allowed the British Columbia club to erase a two-goal deficit in the final three minutes of regulation time. JT Miller contributed to this victory with three assists.
” There [résilience] is our word,” said Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet. This has been the case all year. Some situations we found ourselves in, somehow we got out of them. It might not be pretty. It wasn’t pretty tonight, but we found a way. »
Mark Jankowski, Gustav Nyquist and Filip Forsberg responded for the Predators. Juuse Saros made 16 saves.
In his first career playoff game in the National Hockey League, former Trois-Rivières Lions goalie Arturs Silovs turned away 27 of the 30 pucks aimed at him in front of the Canucks cage.
“I actually felt good,” Silovs shared. I was just doing my things, focusing on what I practiced. That’s all. »
The 23-year-old Latvian is the third Canucks goalie to play since the start of the spring tournament, after the team’s No. 1 goaltender Thatcher Demko and Casey DeSmith were injured.
Demko led his team to victory in the series opener, but has since been sidelined with an undisclosed injury. His condition is reassessed every week.
DeSmith played in the next two games and had a 1-1-0 record, a 2.02 goals-against average and a .911 save percentage. The reason for his absence for Sunday’s game has not been made public.
Boeser was the game’s first scorer when he took a pass from Miller before firing a shot. Saros dropped his stick as he dove to try to make the save and the puck went under his arm. It was Boeser’s second goal of the series.
The Predators quickly responded during a four-on-four sequence, when Forsberg and Lindholm were chased for obstructing actions four seconds apart.
Quebecer Jérémy Lauzon made a shot and Jankowski deflected it to the back of the net at 5:34 of the first period.
The injuries then began to pile up as the period progressed. Predators defenseman Roman Josi, then Canucks guards Quinn Hughes and Tyler Myers were injured, but they all returned to the game.
Nyquist made it 2-1 at 5:21 of the second when he beat Silovs with a wrist shot. Forsberg doubled his team’s lead 12 seconds into the third.
Boeser then scored twice while Silovs was benched for a sixth skater to force an overtime period.
“I think there were times this year where we showed a lot of character,” Boeser said. I think it prepared us for this moment, and the message is that you can never give up before the final siren at the end of the match.
“We didn’t give up and kept fighting. We felt the tide shift as we tied the score and felt confident heading into overtime. »