NASHVILLE — Ryan Johansen calls it “a weapon.”
Ryan Ellis calls it “a bomb.”
Filip Forsberg doesn’t have a word for it, really: “It’s just so hard.”
What they’re describing is the slap shot of their captain, Shea Weber, who used that cannon (weapon, bomb, whatever you want to call it) to pot the game-winner in Game 3 on Tuesday, giving his Nashville Predators a 2-1 lead they’d never relinquish in an eventual 4-1 win in front of a raucous hometown crowd at Bridgestone Arena.
With the win, the Predators cut their series deficit to 2-1. For the first time in this Western Conference matchup, they got more than two pucks past San Jose Sharks goalie Martin Jones, and shut down the typically potent power play.
Finally, it was Nashville’s night. And at home, against the best road team in the NHL — a team that had yet to lose on the road this post-season — until Tuesday.
“I don’t think we did anything differently,” said Johansen, who extended his points streak in this series to three games, drawing an assist on a power-play goal from James Neal—the right winger with the red beard and very white teeth, who wired a one-timer from a sharp angle at the bottom of the left face off dot to make it 1-1 about five minutes into the second.
“I just think we did everything a little bit better,” Johansen said. “Our power play did a great job, we had some solid individual efforts, and Peks was a brick wall.”
Once again, Predators goalie Pekka Rinne was outstanding, making 26 saves to earn the win.
Early on, it did look like it would be the Sharks’ night once again. In the first, Weber swung once and then twice at a bouncing puck, and Sharks forward Patrick Marleau — who, at 36, has some serious wheels — blew past both him and Roman Josi, then skated around Rinne who was way out of his crease, and easily slid the puck into the open net.
But Nashville answered in the second, and on the power play no less. Nashville was 2-31 with the man advantage heading into Game 3, but struck twice in Game 3, including Neal’s goal in the second half of a four-minute advantage.
Weber’s goal, his third of the playoffs, came on a broken play. Johansen was carrying the puck in, trying to make a move on a Sharks defender.
“The defenceman ended up poking it right on [Weber’s] stick,” Johansen said. “I was joking around that I got eyes on the back of my head, but it was a lucky play. It was nice to have him right in that spot.”
Johansen’s next thought, upon seeing Weber wind up for the one-timer in the high slot: “Get out of the way.”
The goal, the 13th of Weber’s career in the post-season, ties him for the franchise lead with David Legwand.
Weber is soft-spoken and quiet. When he talks about his goal, he doesn’t smile.
It was Weber’s dad who first taught him that shot, the one that’s won him the NHL skills competition in back-to-back years, clocking 108.1 MPH this season. The 30-year-old from small-town B.C. doesn’t remember the first time he really connected on one; Weber figures it was at a hockey school.
“Somewhere along the way there, I found something I liked and just worked on it every day,” Weber said. “I would come home and just shoot pucks until I couldn’t shoot anymore, and I’d do it again the next day. It’s something I’ve always enjoyed.”
When Weber scored that go-ahead goal, the capacity crowd of 17,163 went bananas, waving their yellow towels as their bracelets flashed yellow and gold and their goal song — Tim McGraw’s “I like it, I love it” — played for the second time.
The Predators really know how to put on a show. Prior to the game, fans beat up on a Sharks-painted truck with a sledgehammer. There were bouncy castles. There were trampolines. Before warm-ups, mascot Gnash crawled on the ice on all fours, hoping to conjure up some luck for the home team, like the stray black cat at SAP Center did for the Sharks in Game 1. (That cat was later named Joe Paw-velski, after the Sharks captain. Brilliant.)
Gnash later descended from the rafters, hanging by a chord. Tennessee Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota was there waving a towel. A country concert broke out between periods featuring Vince Gill.
All the atmosphere needed was a victory, and the Predators delivered.
“I think we fed off our home crowd,” said Ellis, who drew an assist on Colin Wilson’s goal in the third to make it 3-1. “Whenever we play in front of them, they charge us up.”
While the Sharks were out-shooting Nashville by upwards of 10 shots in the second period, the Predators out-chanced San Jose in the final frame, finishing with 25 shots to San Jose’s 27. Forsberg scored his second of the playoffs with less than five minutes remaining to put the game out of reach.
Earlier this week, Forsberg was hit by a Weber shot. “I didn’t feel too good,” the 21-year-old Swede said, grinning. “I got hit on the glove — I got lucky. At least I had a little protection.”
Forsberg admits there’s a little fear when he’s in front of the net and he sees his captain wind up. “The thing is, you don’t move — if you move, you might get hit by it,” he said. “He’s a good shooter. Just try to get in front of the goalie.”
Forsberg’s thought when he saw his captain tee one up on the slot in the second period: “He doesn’t miss those.”
As Johansen put it while he ripped tape off his shin pads: “I wouldn’t want to be the goalie.”
