Steven Stamkos dished out a pair of assists in his return to Tampa Bay, but the Nashville Predators ultimately fell to the Lightning by a 3-2 final in overtime on Monday night at Amalie Arena.

The result sees Nashville’s three-game win streak come to an end on a night where they almost found a way to come back once more, but the storybook ending for Stamkos and his club wasn’t meant to be.

“I mean, I obviously wanted to come in here and get a win for our team, but we’ll take the point,” Stamkos said. “I thought we started a little sluggish in the game. They’ve got some skilled players that made some good plays, but we battled back. And, for me, obviously a pretty weird night, pretty emotional. But, once the tribute happened, you kind of settle into the game, and then you focus on what you need to do to help your team win. And [we] just came up a little short tonight.”

The tribute for Stamkos from his former club was full of emotion, and the Lightning fans gave him a thunderous ovation while his current teammates tapped their sticks in appreciation. From there, Nashville showed resilience once more to battle back after falling down by two goals, but Tampa Bay ended up on the right side of the scoresheet.

“[It was a] tough loss,” Preds Alternate Captain Ryan O’Reilly said. “It would have been, obviously, very nice to squeak that out for Stammer. We know what he means to this organization and all he’s done for the city, and it would have been special to get that win for him. But, it was obviously a special night.”

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O’Reilly and Gustav Nyquist tallied for the Preds, and goaltender Juuse Saros was brilliant while making 24 saves on the night, but Nick Paul potted the winner in overtime to give Nashville a single point in the effort.

“I thought we were resilient again,” Preds Head Coach Andrew Brunette said. “We grinded away. It wasn’t a pretty, picture-perfect kind of game. Obviously, we’re running a little bit on fumes with the back-to-back, [three games in four nights], travel – a little bit of an emotional kind of day. So, I thought we did a good job just trying to stay in the moment and grab two points. We wanted two, we got one, but just to get one here on the road was big.”

Tampa Bay had a 2-0 advantage through one period of play thanks to goals from Brayden Point and Mitchell Chaffee, but as was the case last Friday night in Chicago, the Predators found a way to reverse their fortunes.

Nikita Kucherov appeared to put the Lightning up by three goals in the second stanza, but once again, the Preds challenged the play for an offside call, and they were indeed successful.

And yes, as was the case in Chicago, Nashville then went on the attack. First, O’Reilly took a pass in tight off his skate and spun to slide the puck past Andrei Vasilevskiy and over the goal line for a power-play marker to get the Preds on the board. Then, Tampa Bay got caught on a line change, Stamkos found Nyquist streaking into the zone for a partial break, and No. 14 in white converted to even the score at 2-2 through 40 minutes.

Both teams had their opportunities the rest of the way, with Saros turning away chance after chance for the Lightning as regulation wound down.

“Gosh, Juice played great,” O’Reilly said. “Juice gave us a chance. There were some unbelievable stops at key times in the game. They’ve got some great players that make really good plays out there, and he was there every time making that save. He was a huge reason we got a point tonight.”

The night almost ended perfectly for Nashville as Stamkos had a chance in tight in the extra session, but he was unable to convert. Shortly after that, Paul ended it.

From here, the Predators will get some rest after playing three games in four days before they host the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday, and Nashville will look to find extra points in the standings once more.

“I definitely don’t think we started the game really well,” Stamkos said. “We were a little passive, and like I said, they’ve got some really good players that can make you look silly if you play passive. So, we came back. I still think we gave up too many quality chances, and that’s not in our DNA, so we’ll look to fix that. I thought Juice played unbelievable tonight and gave us a chance to get a point here on a situation. So, we’ll take the point, get home and get some rest.”

Notes:

Prior to Monday’s game, the Preds reassigned defenseman Marc Del Gaizo to Milwaukee (AHL). Forwards Juuso Parssinen and Philip Tomasino were scratched for Nashville against the Lightning.

Earlier on Monday, Preds goaltender Juuse Saros was named the NHL’s Second Star of the Week.

The Predators will close out the month of October when they host the Edmonton Oilers on Halloween night at Bridgestone Arena.