It was, in the end, another familiar if not exactly comfortable experience: a back-and-forth nailbiter of a playoff elimination game, with the Predators coming up just short of extending their season.
In this case, the dagger came with 99 seconds remaining in regulation on a Pius Suter goal that was facilitated by some admittedly beautiful passing around the back of the Preds’ net. Although they were thrown a lifeline with 33.9 seconds left in the form of a Canucks penalty (not the first crosscheck to the back that a Vancouver player had committed on-ice), the clock struck midnight all the same.