The good news for the Nashville Predators is they put up a significantly better fight on Thursday night thanks to a valiant goaltending effort from Connor Ingram.
The bad news for the Nashville Predators is it still was not enough.
Cale Makar scored the game-winning goal for the Colorado Avalanche nine minutes into the overtime period to help lift his team to a 2-1 win and a commanding 2-0 lead in the series. It capped off an absolutely brilliant night by Makar who never seemed to leave the ice and always seemed to have the puck on his stick.
Makar, one of the top contenders for the Norris Trophy this season as the league’s top all-around defender, was the best player on the ice and nobody was even close to him. He logged over 30 minutes of ice-time, had 23 total shot attempts, put 11 shots on goal, while the Avalanche had a 41-15 shot attempts advantage with him on the ice during 5-on-5 play. Oh, and he also scored the game-winning goal.
It was an absurd performance by one of the league’s best players.
It also spoiled what was the game of Connor Ingram’s life.
After the Predators were run out of the building in Game 1, Nashville made the switch to Ingram for the Game 2 start and he did everything he could to keep his team in the game, stopping 48 out of 50 shots. The Predators are down to him and David Rittich in net due to the injury to starting goalie Juuse Saros. The frustrating thing for Nashville on Thursday is this is probably the best they can hope for in this series against a vastly superior Avalanche team and it still was not enough.
The series does shift back to Nashville for Game 3 on Saturday, but it is really difficult to see them winning four out of the next five games.
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Adam Gretz is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @AGretz.
