In Monday’s 4-3 win over the Colorado Avalanche, Nashville Predators forward Yakov Trenin scored the biggest goal of the team’s season, and arguably his career.
Sixteen seconds after teammate Filip Forsberg scored the game-tying goal with 38 seconds left in regulation, Trenin found himself in the right place at the right time.
After innocently flipping the puck into the offensive zone from near the Predators bench, Trenin hustled toward the Avalanche net after the puck bounced into the crease as a result of a blunder by Cale Makar, who attempted to play the puck off the glass but took a tumble behind the net as the puck centered right in front of goalie Alexandar Georgiev.
The Avs net-minder stopped a Cole Smith point-blank snap shot that bounced directly in front of Trenin, who casually pushed it into the goal to cap a wild 4-3 come-from-behind Predators win.
“I think Trenin is such a loveable guy because he does anything for the team, he works as hard as anybody on the team, he wants to win, and to see him get rewarded for all the ones he maybe thought he missed or he missed early was pretty cool,” Predators coach Andrew Brunette said.
It marked the second straight game that Trenin had scored a goal, and it was his third point since re-entering the lineup after being a healthy scratch in Nashville’s 7-5 loss to the Arizona Coyotes on Nov. 11.
That game was the first time Trenin had been scratched this season — a decision Brunette stated was a tactic to help him clear his mind and help him recenter his focus and not used as a punishment.
“I think he’s put so much pressure on himself to score,” Brunette added. “He didn’t score early and I had to take him out of the lineup; he’s been much better, he’s got rewarded. Again, it was never a lack of effort from him — just things weren’t going in and then his game kind of deteriorated and did a little rest, and he’s been great since he’s been back.”
Fortunately for the Predators, Trenin’s track record indicates when he starts scoring, there’s usually more coming.
Since becoming a full-time NHLer during the 2021-22 season, a great deal of Trenin’s points have come in bunches.
Last season, he made it onto the score sheet in back-to-back games three times and he had two separate five-game runs that produced five points each plus four other instances where he notched three points in a three-game stretch.
The season before that, Trenin had three three-game stretches that produced three or more points and included a career-best run of eight games that yielded seven points which started at the end of December and bled into the middle of January.
After placing center Cody Glass on injured reserve Wednesday afternoon, and with fellow center Tommy Novak already on IR, Trenin could be heating up at just the right time for the goal-deficient Predators.
“I hope [it’s the start of a scoring streak for me],” Trenin said. “I want to keep it going.”
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