Saros allowed two goals on the first two shots he faced in Vancouver, but the 2022 Vezina finalist didn't allow the tough start to dictate the rest of his evening as the Predators walked away with a shootout win over the Canucks.
It was definitely not the start Juuse Saros was hoping for.
After serving as the Nashville Predators backup in their decisive win over the Calgary Flames Thursday, Saros took his place in net against the Vancouver Canucks Saturday night. He promptly gave up one of those soft goals to Ilya Mikheyev that keeps a goaltender up at night and just minutes later watched as a rebound shot by J.T. Miller put the Predators in a 2-0 deficit.
If that were the way the rest of the game unfolded and ended, this would be a very different article. But Juuse Saros, a goaltender whispered about for his slow starts in the early games of a season, is a competitor who gets better with practice and time. He had a lot of practice after those two goals in last night's game as the Canucks went on to outshoot the Predators 45-30 in 65:00 of hockey.
That number of shots faced in the entire game doesn't explain the kind of night Saros had or needed to have after allowing two goals on his first two save attempts. Saros had to come up big moments later as J.T. Miller can barreling at him on a shorthanded breakaway and Bo Horvat tried to sneak the puck past Saros before Nashville could corral the puck with the man advantage and head the other way. That was just a taste of the night ahead for Nashville's Finnish netminder. As the Preds headed into the locker room down 3-0 after the first period, Saros was 3/13 - an inauspicious start for one of last year's Vezina finalists.
The first intermission gave Saros a chance to regroup. He came out in the second period and faced 17 shots, a barrage of which came on 3 power play chances and :17 seconds of five on three play for the Canucks. Nashville clawed their way back into the game in the third period and outshot Vancouver 15-13, and as the Preds scored two goals in the third to take it to overtime, Saros dug in and shut down the Canucks to keep his team in the game.
When all was said and done, Saros played 65 minutes of hockey against a top five power play unit and two top twenty points scorers in Elias Pettersson and Bo Horvat, shut down J.T. Miller and Pettersson in the shootout, and skated out of Rogers Arena with a .933 save percentage and a win after his worst start of the season.
Last night's first four minutes weren't easy to dig out of, but Saros understands what he needs to do to help this struggling Predators team get back on the right track. He didn't let himself off the hook last night.
Teammate Mattias Ekholm said of Saros after the game, "He's always the most honest guy in here and he knows he should probably have had that first one. But other than that, in the second period he kept us alive, he kept us in it. We let up some breakaways, there was a five-on-three and a number of power plays. So good on him. He's the backbone of this team. And he showed it last year. He's going to show us this year again, so it was really good for him."
Head Coach John Hynes agreed.
"He's been battling and fighting kind of like our team here a little bit. He hasn't gotten a ton of traction, but tonight he was a big reason why we were able to stay in the game and then find a way to get ourselves back in it."
While slower starts in the early part of a season may be typical of Saros, so is finding a way to keep his team competitive in a game where the Preds are being outplayed for stretches.
Saros was true to form last night in Vancouver.