O\u2019Reilly, along with Steven Stamkos, Roman Josi and Jonathan Marchessault were the other teammates on the ice, a decent collection of star players to celebrate one\u2019s first goal with. Marchessault, who passed the puck to Ufko, simply mouthed \u201cWow\u201d as the rookie began to skate toward the bench for his line of congratulatory fist bumps.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And for O\u2019Reilly, who has 1,215 games of NHL experience compared to Ufko\u2019s four, that tally was one to remember.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s very slippery,\u201d O\u2019Reilly said of Ufko. \u201cHe\u2019s got great hands and is very deceptive. After a few games watching him play, you can see it. When he got the puck there, coming with speed, he was just loose. And he dangled three guys and the goalie there, and it was really impressive. It was a great move, but I could see he’s got a ton of skill and deceptiveness. I was just going to the net and just trying to make some room, and he just slipped through everyone put it in. So, it was an incredible play. A huge goal for us as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ufko\u2019s marker helped Nashville get to within one point of Seattle for the final Wild Card spot in the Western Conference and keep them very much in the thick of a playoff hunt. Following a nerve-racking week that saw four Predators players dealt away ahead of last Friday\u2019s NHL Trade Deadline, a number of rookies and second-year skaters were recalled from Milwaukee to Nashville, Ufko being one of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
All that collection of players has done through three games since the deadline is not only keep the Preds in things until the final horn, but they\u2019ve made sure this group is anything but out of the postseason conversation.<\/p>\n
And if Ufko\u2019s goal was any indicator of what\u2019s to come, it\u2019s going to be a very intriguing ride of meaningful hockey in the final 18 games of the regular season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think for our group, obviously, we all know what happened, and a lot of guys got moved, but there’s a great opportunity for young guys to step up and prove themselves,\u201d O\u2019Reilly said. \u201cThat was a huge goal in probably the biggest game of the year for us; a four-point swing. We have a terrible start, but to kind of respond like that, and for \u2018Uffy\u2019 to step up and get that huge game winning goal was massive.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s nice to see those young guys step up and contribute. If we’re going to get into the playoffs, it’s going to be everyone. Us veteran guys have to lead the way, and the young guys have to bring the life and the energy. And obviously it was just a huge play by \u2018Uffy\u2019 there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"O\u2019Reilly, along with Steven Stamkos, Roman Josi and Jonathan Marchessault were the other teammates on the ice, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-518543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}