The Nashville Predators have lost four of five games since a team-record 18-game point streak.
But Saturday night’s 2-0 loss to the New York Islanders was less about the Predators and more about Islanders goalie Semyon Varlamov.
The Predators will look to inch closer to clinching a playoff spot on Sunday night when they complete a back-to-back set, against the New Jersey Devils in Newark, N.J.
Varlamov stopped all 41 shots he faced Saturday against the Predators.
The Devils also played Saturday night, when they snapped a three-game losing streak with a 4-3 win over the host Ottawa Senators.
The 41 shots were tied for the eighth-most the Predators have registered in a shutout loss in franchise history. Varlamov turned back 20 shots in the third period, including five during two power plays in a five-minute span. The Islanders’ goalie used his stick to deflect an attempt by Ryan O’Reilly before gloving a shot by Filip Forsberg during the second power play.
“They were a desperate team,” Predators coach Andrew Brunette said of the Islanders, who took over sole possession of third place in the Metropolitan Division with the win. “I thought we did a lot of good things all through the ice, all through the game. Maybe we were a little bit sluggish early, and I thought we got going. We just couldn’t buy a goal late in the game.”
The Predators (44-29-4, 92 points) fell into the second wild card in the Western Conference by virtue of the Los Angeles Kings’ 6-3 win over the Vancouver Canucks. The Kings, who have 93 points, vaulted into third place in the Pacific Division and dropped the Vegas Golden Knights into a tie for the wild-card spots. The Golden Knights have a game in hand on Nashville.
The two teams are seven points ahead of the St. Louis Blues. The Predators would clinch a playoff berth by collecting three points in their final five games.
The win over the Senators kept the Devils (37-36-4, 78 points) on the periphery of the Eastern Conference wild-card race. New Jersey is in 13th place in the East and five points behind the Pittsburgh Penguins, who moved into the second wild-card spot by virtue of their 5-4 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday afternoon.
History almost repeated itself later in the evening for the Devils, who squandered multi-goal leads in each of their previous three losses. Erik Haula, Ondrej Palat and Brendan Smith scored in the first period for New Jersey, which carried a 4-1 lead into the third period before Ottawa scored twice in the third.
“They definitely had a great push, and we tried to hold (on),” said Devils center Nico Hischier, who scored New Jersey’s final goal with 8:56 left in the second. “At the end it was a little bit ugly, but we got it done, so that was good.”
