i don’t doubt this is how nashville saw it. i am sure as they doing tape before the game, the message was, these are mentally weak losers and you are never out of it. we have a reputation and it means teams aren’t going to get demoralized no matter how big a lead we build.
but i don’t think that first goal was the real turning point. what i saw was us continuing to carry the play through the second period while myers was serving his triple penalty. but then in the last minute myers is back and immediately proceeds to flub a breakout, gets spun around a few times on the ensuing nashville cycle, and then we get caved in. that shift was the momentum nashville took into the intermission, where their coach 100% said “we have these losers right where we want them.”
i knew that shift we were going to lose. i nodded off during the intermission and woke up three minutes into the third and saw the 3-3 score and was like, sounds about right.
obviously i didn’t see the two goals but what i’m imagining is demko lets in that early, somewhat fluky goal, both he and the team get demoralized, which compounds exponentially because each of them doesn’t trust the other, and at the same time saros really really has milller’s (and omg dries’s) number, which is also in the team’s heads.
and that was the game.