In Nashville, the Colorado Avalanche continued their offensive showcasing in a7-3 win over the Predators on Saturday.
The win gives the Avs a 3-0 series lead.
Gabriel Landeskog led the charge for Colorado with a pair of goals and four points in the win.
Game 4 is Monday in Nashville.
“There’s no easy games in the playoffs,” Landeskog said. “They’ve got their backs against the wall at home. They definitely don’t want to get swept at home. We want to try to end this thing and don’t give them any life, so it’s going to be a big game on Monday.”
Darcy Kuemper got the start for the Colorado, but was replaced when he sustained an injury to his eye on errant stick, he made nine saves and yielded one goal before leaving the game.
Pavel Francouz made 18 saves in relief.
“I didn’t see what happened initially to Darcy, but I only saw that he was having a lot of pain and I was sure that I’m going in right away,” Francouz said. “It’s always tough when you see a goalie get hurt, but you have to focus all of your thoughts on the game, on the puck, so that was something I was trying to do. I had huge support from my teammates.”
Artturi Lehkonen and Nathan MacKinnon struck for goals for Colorado to give them a 2-0 lead.
Matt Duchene and Eeli Tolvanen replied for Nashville to tie the game, 2-2.
Landeskog and Roman Josi traded goals for a 3-3 tie.
“We liked our game, [and I] thought we played a lot better than we did in the first two games,” Josi said. “[We’ve] got to stay aggressive. There’s not one person in this room that doesn’t believe that we can turn this around. We’re going to come out Monday and play aggressive. … We believe we can beat this team.”
Landeskog scored again for a 4-3 lead, Nazem Kadri popped in a power play goal for a 5-3 advantage.
“Obviously, it was a swing,” Predators coach John Hynes said. “We review these things [for] basically every goalie interference call that goes through. You review it and, in our
opinion, you take all those things into account. But we felt in our review and judgment that it was goaltender interference.”
Devon Toews pushed the lad to 6-3, and Valeri Nichushkin added an empty-net goal for the 7-3 final.
Conn-3or Ingram made 34 saves in the Preds loss.

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