Nashville’s latest clash with Colorado wasn’t just another regular-season game – it was a wild, momentum-swinging roller coaster that ended with Ryan O’Reilly calmly ripping the heart out of the Avalanche in a tense shootout.
A Wild Night in Smashville
In a game that felt like playoff hockey in December, the
Nashville Predators edged the
Colorado Avalanche 4–3 in a shootout at Bridgestone Arena, with captain
Ryan O’Reilly scoring the lone goal of the tiebreaker. Nashville has now
won three of its last four, clawing back some momentum after a rough start to the season.
Colorado, meanwhile, left town with just a single point – and another frustrating shootout loss. The Avs have now
dropped all three of their shootouts this season, a troubling pattern for a team with as much top-end talent as any in the league.
Predators’ New Faces Deliver in Regulation
What made this game especially intriguing was who scored for Nashville.
According to the AP recap,
Jonathan Marchessault, Reid Schaefer, and Brady Skjei provided the Predators’ three regulation goals. All three are relatively new faces in Nashville colors, acquired as part of the team’s ongoing retool, and they showed exactly why the front office brought them in.
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Jonathan Marchessault: The former Conn Smythe winner continues to prove he’s more than just a playoff specialist, adding another key goal to his Preds tally.
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Reid Schaefer: The young forward chipped in with a crucial marker, exactly the kind of depth scoring Nashville has been desperate to unlock.
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Brady Skjei: The veteran defenseman jumped up and ripped home a go-ahead goal in the third period, giving Nashville a 3–2 lead with just over seven minutes left.
On the other side, Colorado’s high-powered offense did what it usually does: generate chances in waves. Defenseman
Cale Makar added yet another highlight to his growing reel, blasting home the dramatic
game-tying goal in the dying seconds of regulation to force overtime. It was the kind of clutch moment that made it feel like the Avs might steal this one late.
Saros Stands Tall, Wedgewood’s Scare, and a Strange Shootout Twist
This game turned into a goaltending showcase – with a twist that felt straight out of a rulebook seminar.
For Nashville,
Juuse Saros was the backbone. He
stopped 39 of 42 shots in regulation and overtime, then shut the door completely in the shootout. Sportsnet’s broadcast highlighted how aggressive Saros was, challenging shooters and holding his ground right at the top of the blue paint in the tiebreaker. For a team still finding its identity, having Saros back in full “steal you a game” mode is absolutely massive.
Colorado started
Scott Wedgewood, and his night got complicated in a hurry. During the shootout,
Filip Forsberg collided heavily with Wedgewood, sending the Avalanche netminder sprawling. He stayed in and tried to continue, but that’s where the NHL’s concussion protocol came crashing into the storyline.
Partway through the shootout, officials received a
call from the concussion spotter and informed Wedgewood he
could not continue, as highlighted in the Sportsnet shootout package. The officials went to the headsets, and the broadcast crew speculated live that the Forsberg collision had triggered the mandatory protocol review.
The ruling effectively
ended the shootout early – a bizarre, unsatisfying twist for Colorado, given that O’Reilly’s goal stood as the only one of the tiebreaker and the Avs were not allowed to complete their next attempt with Wedgewood pulled out by protocol. You don’t often see a shootout decided not just by skill, but by a concussion spotter’s intervention.
Avalanche Firepower, But No Finish in the Skills Contest
On paper, it’s almost shocking that Colorado can’t buy a shootout win right now.
The Avs rolled out elite shooters, but Saros
turned away every attempt, and Colorado’s season-long shootout woes continued. In three tries this year, they’ve yet to find a formula that works after 65 minutes, and 4-on-4 or 3-on-3 excitement keeps turning into disappointment in the skills competition.
Still, Colorado’s offense did plenty at 5-on-5 and on special teams, peppering Saros with 40+ shots and forcing Nashville to hold on for stretches. Makar’s late equalizer in particular felt like a momentum grenade – the kind of moment that usually flips a building. Instead, Saros and O’Reilly yanked that momentum right back in the shootout.
What This Game Really Tells Us About Both Teams
For the Predators
This wasn’t just “two points in December.” It was a
statement win for a team trying to prove its retool isn’t a full-on rebuild.
Key takeaways for Nashville:
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Veteran additions are delivering: Marchessault, O’Reilly, Skjei – all were central to this win.
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Juuse Saros is back to being a game-stealer: 39 saves plus a flawless shootout is Vezina-caliber stuff.
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Resilience is real: Give up a late tying goal to Makar and still find a way to win? That’s a group not folding under pressure.
If they can bottle this kind of effort and goaltending, Nashville’s push back into the Western Conference playoff picture becomes a lot more believable.
For the Avalanche
For Colorado, this has “missed opportunity” written all over it.
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The good:
- Offense is humming; they generated a ton of quality looks and forced Saros into a standout performance.
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Cale Makar continues to be one of the most dangerous players in the league when it matters most, tying the game in the final seconds.
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The bad:
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Shootout problems are now a trend, not a blip – 0-for-3 on the season.
- The Wedgewood concussion-spotter situation will likely spark internal and external debate about process, timing, and contingency plans in shootouts.
Over an 82-game season, those “extra” points from overtime and shootouts add up. For a Cup contender like Colorado, fumbling them away could be the difference between home-ice advantage and a tougher road in April.
Why This Matchup Suddenly Feels Spicier
Avalanche–Predators used to be a fairly standard Western Conference clash. Now, between:
- High-scoring, tightly contested games
- Star power on both benches
- Weird, dramatic finishes like this one
…it’s quietly evolving into one of those
sneaky-fun rivalry tilts you circle on the calendar.
Colorado still has the top-end firepower and pedigree. Nashville, though, is morphing into that annoying, hard-to-kill opponent with elite goaltending and just enough scoring by committee to hurt you.
If they meet again with playoff stakes attached, remember this game. The seeds of that storyline were planted in this chaotic night in Nashville – complete with a clutch Makar bomb, a Saros masterclass, and O’Reilly’s ice-cold winner punctuated by a rare concussion-spotter twist.
Sources
1. NHL Highlights | Avalanche vs. Predators - December 9, 2025
2. Colorado Avalanche at Nashville Predators - December 9, 2025
3. Colorado Avalanche vs. Nashville Predators - NHL Game Recap
4. COL at NSH | Recap - NHL.com
5. Avalanche's Makar Fires Home Game-Tying Goal In Dying Seconds
