The celebration on the ice that immediately followed Evangelista\u2019s tally was a bit more exuberant than a normal regular season game – but that outing was also anything but normal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This five-game excursion that weaves back and forth through California and ends next Thursday in Utah has the potential to determine whether or not the Predators are preparing for a playoff series in less than two weeks or packing their bags for the offseason.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They\u2019d prefer the first option, and moments like Evangelista\u2019s strike might just end up getting the job done.<\/p>\n
And as for the man in charge of calling Evangelista\u2019s number in an instance like that, the final decision of the night ended up being the right one.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen both goalies play with that, I think you\u2019re just looking down the bench, and kind of just pick them out of a hat here a little bit,\u201d Preds Head Coach Andrew Brunette said of the process. \u201cWe haven’t been in too many [shootouts] that go past three rounds. We haven’t seen everybody shoot, and \u2018Vange\u2019 is a guy with tremendous poise and hands, and he showed it tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
That showing kept the Preds right in the thick of the race – and those two clubs they\u2019re tied with in the standings?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Their next two games just happen to come in San Jose on Saturday and in Los Angeles on Monday – hence the season defining roadtrip language.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s no place the Preds would rather be right now than in the Golden State holding their playoff destiny in their hockey gloves.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And as the pressure mounts, it\u2019s still OK to find enjoyment in it all, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, these are fun games,\u201d Evangelista said. \u201cThis road trip for us is all teams that we’re kind of competing against, and obviously, L.A., we’re neck and neck with them right now. That was a hell of a game. That’s a fun game. It’s a fun win for us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The celebration on the ice that immediately followed Evangelista\u2019s tally was a bit more exuberant than a normal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539283,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5119],"tags":[5,2409,231,5281,4,2410],"class_list":{"0":"post-539282","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nashville-predators","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-nashville","10":"tag-nashville-predators","11":"tag-nashvillepredators","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-predators"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116343220724865119","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539282\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}