In Nashville, the visiting Chicago Blackhawks played terrible guests to the Predators as they thrashed the Preds, 7-2, on Saturday.
Robin Lehner made 39 saves to back up the offensive outburst from the Hawks.
“It’s nice to see them get rewarded,” Lehner said of the Blackhawks offense after Chicago scored at least five goals for the fourth time in five games. “Ever since we changed a few things, it opens up the talent and the skill level we have as a team.”
Roman Josi scored both Predators goals.
“Defense is always a five-man job out there, like offense too,” Josi said. “We’ve got to make sure we all defend together, we come back together, we battle it out together. We didn’t do any of that tonight.”
Nashville has fallen on hard times and are 1-4-2 in their last seven.
“We have to do a little bit of soul-searching,” Colton Sissons said after the loss. “It’s not been going well for a little while here and it’s been a struggle, but teams go through this as we know. We have the personnel here to turn this around in a hurry. We’ve got a huge game against Winnipeg on Tuesday so we can’t dwell on this one too long.”
Alex Nylander had two strikes for the Blackhawks.
“We’ve got a great team,” Nylander said. “We just had a little bit of a rough start in the beginning, but we’re coming together now and we’re creating chances and we’re shooting the puck more. We’ve just been doing a really good job the past couple games, and we just need to keep going like this.”
Patrick Kane, Erik Gustafsson, Dominik Kubalik, Brent Seabrook, and David Kampf added single markers in the win as Chicago spread the scoring around the roster.
“I thought it was a good performance, especially the first two periods,” Blackhawks head coach Jeremy Colliton said. “Obviously we scored on our chances, and we got some really timely saves too by [Lehner], especially in the first few minutes when they had a bit of a flurry. Scored some timely goals, and obviously the guys have some confidence and had some fun out there.”
[WATCH: All Blackhawks vs. Predators highlights]
Pekka Rinne got the start but was given the hook after making only 10 saves.
Juuse Saros also made 10 saves in relief.
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