The game didn’t start pretty, but that was sure a way to finish it.
The Nashville Predators came out short in the first period but crawled their way back through the game and took down the Seattle Kraken 4-2 Tuesday at Climate Pledge Arena.
It’s the team’s first win in its five-game road trip, helping them get within two points of a wild card spot in the Western Conference. The Preds advance to a 29-27-8 record on the season as they keep their playoff hopes alive.
Rookie defenseman Ryan Ufko scored his first NHL goal late in the second frame to break the tie and Juuse Saros made 43 stops, setting a season-high for the Finnish goalie. Tyson Jost, Reid Schaefer, and Steven Stamkos also scored in the comeback win while Jonathan Marchessault notched two assists.
“The guys were saying this is the biggest game of the year,” Ufko said. “We’re chasing these guys and to go down two early was pretty tough but the way we came back is pretty special.”
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Kaapo Kakko and Matty Beniers scored for Seattle in the first period off of wide-angle . Nashville struggled to get to the net as they went down 6-0 in shots halfway through the opening stanza. They would remain on the low for shots, finishing 45-27.
Fedor Svechkov began leading the rush early in the second and dished it over to Jost who promptly scored on Kraken goalie Joey Daccord. Just over the halfway mark in the frame, Matthew Wood sent it to the crease and Schaefer responded, crashing the net with his fifth of the season. Wood extended his point streak to three games and brought his assist count to 10.
Ufko got ahold of the puck off an offensive zone draw and swerved around two Kraken forwards before going backhand-forehand with the finish for a beautiful first career goal.
“Kinda practiced those moves a lot. Some of the younger guys on the bench were kind of like ‘oh, I knew it was coming,’” Ufko said. “It was a great faceoff win. Marchy gave me the puck, and I felt like I had a bit of time and space. I made one move and saw a lane to the net and just took it there and scored a goal.”
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RYAN UFKO HAS HIS FIRST NHL GOAL AND IT WAS GORGEOUS 😱 pic.twitter.com/Ge7plVWzEO
— NHL (@NHL) March 11, 2026
Stamkos topped off the win with an empty netter as they shut down the Kraken. It’s no surprise that two of three stars of the game went to Nashville, Saros being the third and arguably most important. It’s the most amount of saves he’s made in a game since a 6-3 win against the Blues in April 2024.
“He was the best guy out there,” Ufko said. “40-plus saves, some of the stops he made on that PK in the third, saves in the first—ithout him, we wouldn’t have won that game.”
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Nashville went 0/1 on the man-advantage, snapping a six-game power play goal streak. It was the longest stretch of its kind for the team this season, helping them reach the league’s top ten power play percentages with 22.9%.
The Predators will head north to face the Vancouver Canucks, starting a three-game Canadian road trip. They’ll play against the Edmonton Oilers and Winnipeg Jets to round off of the trip before flying home to face the Kraken for a rematch.
