The Anaheim Ducks were in Nashville Thursday to face their nearest competitor in the NHL, the Predators. They left with a solid 5-2 win with Jakob Silfverberg scoring twice to lead the offense.
“It’s a very tough building to win in, especially losing Getzlaf real close to the game,” Silfverberg said. “It’s obviously tough, but we’ve proven it before that other guys will have to step up if we lose some of our key guys, and I think a lot of guys showed up tonight and played really well. Winning here is tough and we managed to do it tonight.”
The Ducks built a 4-0 lead through two periods before the Predators finally broke through in the third with two goals.
Frederik Andersen was stellar in net for Anaheim making 44 saves for the win.
“It’s pretty nice to win against a good team,” Andersen said. “We started our road trip off with a good win, even though I don’t think we played the way we wanted to in the first and in the third. We’ll take those bounces in the first and get that good win. That’s how it is on the road sometimes. You’ve got to weather the storm a little bit and get a couple of lucky bounces like we did in the first.”
For Nashville, it was the anticipated return of Pekka Rinne from injury. Rinne missed eight games with a knee injury and must have wished for better defense in front of him.
“I think coming into the game, you want to get in there and do great things,” Predators coach Peter Laviolette said. “I think there was a lot of tough bounces for him that happened right away. There’s two redirect goals out there tonight where it hits something, completely changes direction and then banks in off of a post and in the net. [Rinne] did a lot of great things out there tonight too. He made some terrific saves.”
Anaheim’s Ryan Getzlaf sustained some lower-body injury in warm-ups and is now listed as day to day.
“It’s a lower-body injury,” Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau said. “That’s all I’m saying right now. It’s day-to-day, and we’ll probably know more before we hit Tampa [Bay on Feb. 8] anyway. I don’t even know if he can play [Friday], but he’s coming to Washington with us.”
Sami Vatanen, Matt Beleskey, and Corey Perry also scored for the Ducks.
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