Nashville Predators Right Wing Brandon Yip (18) Winds

The Nashville Predators are used to late third-period heroics. Down 4-1 early in the third period against the Minnesota Wild, the Predators scored four unanswered goals, including two from Mike Fisher, to win 5-4 in regulation Tuesday night to finish out the month of January with an 11-2 record.

Down 3-0 after the first period of play, Matt Halischuk scored his 12th goal of the season at 9:33 into the middle frame to make it a 3-1 game. Kevin Klein and Brandon Yip picked up the assists.

It was the first point for Yip as a Predator.

After Kyle Brodziak scored 16 seconds into the third period to extend the Wild’s lead back to three goals, Yip scored his first goal as a Predator at 9:22 of the third period to start the Predators unlikely comeback.

The Predators claimed Yip off of waivers on January 19th from the Colorado Avalanche. The 6’1, 195 pound forward played 113 games as a member of the Avalanche, including seven career contests against the Predators, scoring 23 goals and adding 18 assists for 41 points.

This season, Yip’s third in the NHL, the forward was unable to crack the Colorado lineup, after missing time with arm and groin injuries. Yip played 10 games with Colorado this year before being put on waivers January 18th.

Yip has played well on a line with Matt Halischuk and Craig Smith while Jerred Smithson is out of Nashville’s lineup.

Though he was a healthy scratch against Columbus just before the All-Star Break, Yip says being claimed by the Predators was a great feeling. “It was the best feeling of my life when I got that call. You never know where you are going to go” Yip said about finding out he had been claimed by the Predators, adding “I was ecstatic and I’m pretty fired up.”

Yip came over to the Predators organization having already played with Colin Wilson at Boston University, where he earned a degree in criminal justice in 2009, graduating with high honors. His senior year at BU, Yip won the NCAA national championship with the Terriers.

When he was a young teenager, Yip also played with Predators captain Shea Weber in summer hockey youth leagues in British Columbia.

“It is nice to have a couple of familiar faces,” Yip said about Weber and Wilson, adding however, that everyone has been very welcoming to him since being picked up off of waivers.

Being picked up by the Predators gave Yip a new lease on his career, a second chance to start over in a new city and a new team. The Vancouver native intends on making the best of it and says he doesn’t want to think about what he would be doing had a career in hockey not worked out. “My dream if I wasn’t playing hockey would be to play golf,” Yip says with a laugh.

The Predators now move on to Philadelphia to face the Flyers on Thursday night before returning home for two games, one against the St. Louis Blues on Saturday and the Vancouver Canucks a week from tonight.

Yip was a self-proclaimed “die-hard” Canucks fan as a kid, “like everyone there” the 26-year old explained, adding “but I obviously don’t like them anymore, now that I play against them.”

 

Photo credit: AP