One player failed to save the Predators four times in the Stanley Cup Final

You usually don’t get to choose the nightmares that haunt you. Bad memories are chosen for you and dragged back into your thoughts at random and against your will.

But, as Toronto Star columnist Bruce Arthur put it so succinctly on Twitter during Game 6:

The versatile but un-flashy Predators forward had four high-grade opportunities to force a Game 7 on Sunday. All came while the game was locked in a scoreless tie. Any of them would’ve, in all likelihood, shifted the momentum firmly in the Predators’ favor.

And none of them worked.

Well, one worked. Unofficially. We’ll start with that as we count the many ways Colton Sissons will be haunted by a Game 6 loss that handed the Penguins a Stanley Cup on Nashville home ice.

Neither NBC nor the NHL have posted video on their websites of this goal. If I had to guess why the NHL hasn’t, it’s because they want people to forget this happened. It’s a terrible look for the league and something that will hang over this Final for years.

If that early whistle hadn’t been blown, Sissons would be hailed as a Cup hero. Considering the chances he created in Game 6, he’ll at least be remembered fondly by Predators fans. But this is the one that got away. The referee lost sight of the puck, blew the whistle and killed the play a second before Sissons put the puck in the net. A back-breaker the Predators never bounced back from.

It’s not that Sissons didn’t swing hard for redemption, though.

Minutes later, Sissons had the best chance of any player in the game.

You could see Sissons slap his stick on the ice after that miss. If only he knew it would get worse!

If had to rank missed scoring chances according to agony, I’d put whiffing on a beautiful shot and ringing a shot off the post right up there with the two above.

Maybe even higher. Imagine if one player checked off all four boxes in one game!

Oh no.

That pass was laid on a tee for Sissons, and it just slid under his stick like it was on a string pulled by a vengeful god.

That’s three primo chances for Sissons to score the first goal of the game. All in the second period. All within minutes of each other.

But wait, there’s more!

Nashville had an entire 5-on-3 to work with in the third period. Nothing came of it, but at least Sissons had another slap shot to fire over Murray’s shoulder late in the frame.

And it rang off the pipe.

Agonizing for Predators fans.

As the game continued and Sissons kept missing on these, you kept thinking that the Predators would score soon anyway and free Sissons from postgame guilt. That moment never came. Any one of those shots would’ve changed the game.

Sissons owned Nashville’s four best chances to extend the series in Game 6, and now he’ll own the four most tormenting moments for Predators fans and players to look back on in the offseason.