NASHVILLE – The Nashville Predators finally might have turned Music City into Hockeytonk.
Nick Spaling scored his second goal of the game at 4:53 of the third period and the Predators won a playoff series for the first time in their history, beating the Anaheim Ducks 4-2 on Sunday.
“I’m happy because I think of the resiliency of the group that worked so hard all year, and I’m relieved because there is a little bit of a cloud that we wanted to get to the next level,” said Barry Trotz, the only coach of the franchise that hit the ice in the 1998-99 season.
“And if we never got there in this series, I think there would be a little bit of a carry-over.”
Now the only questions about this team in the nontraditional hockey market is who the fifth-seeded Predators play in the Western Conference semifinals.