NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Coach John Hynes called timeout, giving his players a chance to regroup for an upcoming power play.
The breather worked.
Cody Glass scored on the man advantage 3:30 into the extra period as the Predators edged the Golden Knights 3-2 on Tuesday night, keeping alive the winners’ thin hopes for a playoff berth.
“We have so many guys normally … you have an opportunity to practice it, and it was really four new guys that hadn’t been on it,” Hynes said of the timeout. “So it was just an opportunity just to kind of sit and talk about some certain plays.”
Jonathan Marchessault was called for holding Philip Tomasino to put Nashville on the power play in overtime, and the Predators needed only 37 seconds before Glass, a former Knight, scored his 14th with his shot deflecting off the skate of defenseman Brayden McNabb and past goalie Jonathan Quick.
“We’ll take that,” said Glass, picked sixth in the 2017 NHL draft by the Knights. “I was happy it went in. We stuck with it and got a win, so it was huge.”
Glass played parts of two seasons, a total of 66 games, for the Knights before being traded in the summer of 2021 to the Preds for another high draft pick, Nolan Patrick. Patrick was the No. 2 pick in the 2017 draft by Philadelphia.
The point was huge for the first-place Knights, who lead the sizzling-hot Edmonton Oilers by three points in the race for the Pacific Division. The teams also are one-two in the fight for the Western Conference title and home-ice advantage in the playoffs.
The Oilers are on a 10-0-1 surge, including Tuesday’s 3-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings, the third-place team in the Pacific and four points back of the Knights. All three teams have four regular-season games remaining.
“They were more urgent than us early on,” said Knights coach Bruce Cassidy, whose team was playing the second game of a back to back. “Younger legs, I think, helped them in the back to back.”
His team played better in the second period, but, overall, Cassidy didn’t seem pleased. “You got pockets of good, pockets of not good enough.”
Tommy Novak notched his third two-goal game this season and had an assist on the winning goal. He has points in 46 games played this season for Nashville. Kevin Lankinen stopped 30 shots.
The victory was huge for the Preds. They pulled within three points of the second wild card in the Western Conference, held by Winnipeg, with Calgary just ahead of Nashville. The Predators visit Winnipeg on Saturday night with five games remaining.
Knights defenseman Alex Pietrangelo matched his career-high with two goals in the second period.
“Sometimes, it’s just not meant to be,” Pietrangelo said. “I thought we poured a lot in on the back to back, and we got in really late. You’ve got to be proud of the effort. We obviously wanted to win, but something to build off of here. I don’t think we can go home super disappointed.”
The Golden Knights had their own man advantage and chance to win in regulation when Lankinen was penalized for delay of game with 4:30 to go. The Nashville goalie stopped every shot to help kill the penalty.
“A late power play, again a chance to win the game, let us down again,” Cassidy said. “That’s been a few games now where we’ve had an opportunity to win with that.”
Novak put Nashville up 2-0 within the first 13:08 of the game. He beat Quick, who had 24 saves, with a backhand 6:50 into the game, then scored again with a wrister from the edge of the left circle off a deflection on the power play.
Lankinen made a flurry of saves during 1:46 of a 5-on-3 late in the first period, including a stop on shot from defenseman Nicolas Hague from the slot in the final seconds of the penalty kill.
Pietrangelo got help for his 10th goal this season with the puck deflecting off the backside of Predators defenseman Kevin Gravel at 6:00 of the second. Then he notched his first two-goal game this season and eighth of his career shooting into the far net and tying it up at 13:39.
