Ellis: Predators 'thoroughly outplayed' Coyotes in series loss

Ryan Ellis believes the Nashville Predators left it all on the ice in their 3-1 series loss against the Arizona Coyotes, which concluded Friday with a 4-3 overtime defeat.

"Colorado, Winnipeg, Dallas ... we weren't happy with those series," Ellis said postgame, recalling the team's previous three playoff opponents, according to NHL.com's Thomas Willis. "This felt different. I felt like we thoroughly outplayed the Coyotes."

The numbers agree. The Predators outshot the Coyotes every game, including 52-33 on Friday. They weren't just firing shots at will from the outside - Nashville had 50 high-danger scoring chances in the series compared to Arizona's 41, according to Natural Stat Trick.

The difference in the series was goaltending. Darcy Kuemper was fantastic, posting a .933 save percentage in the series. Juuse Saros, who played all four games over veteran Pekka Rinne, was mediocre at best, only registering an .895 save percentage.

Filip Forsberg, who scored Nashville's game-tying goal with 32 seconds left in regulation to force overtime, doesn't think his team should hang their heads.

"We played the same way literally throughout the whole series," he said, according to WKRN's Emily Proud. "We played well enough to win, obviously it didn't happen this time."

The Predators now have just one playoff series win since their Stanley Cup Final berth in 2017.