In Nashville, the Predators broke out to a 2-0 lead in the first period, and then needed a goal from Filip Forsberg in extra time to defeat the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins, 3-2 on Tuesday night.
Forsberg scored with 14 seconds gone in the extra session. It was the Predators’ sixth straight win.
“I think I’m playing a pretty fast game,” Forsberg said. “I think our line is playing really well down low. I think we’re getting a lot of pucks back on the forecheck and creating like that. Obviously [O’Reilly and Nashville forward Gustav Nyquist] are making a lot of plays happen for me. I just try to be in the right spots.”
Nashville improved to 11-10-0.
Juuse Saros made 29 saves in the win.
Nashville’s Michael McCarron scored a pair of goals in the first period to stake the Preds to the early lead.
“It’s tough to beat us,” McCarron said. “It’s fun to play. We roll over teams and just keep rolling and rolling. We’re finally starting to play as a group of five on the ice, which is awesome. If we can continue to get better every single day, we’ll be a force.”
Pittsburgh dropped to 10-10-1.
“It’s unfortunate,” Pittsburgh coach Mike Sullivan said. “I thought our team played hard tonight. I thought we had a lot of good looks. It’s unfortunate the way it ended.”
McCarron scored midway through the opening stanza and at 18:38 for the n2-0 lead.
’m just happy with the way the team is playing right now,” Nyquist said. “Obviously, it’s fun to get on a little bit of a roll here. It’s hard to do in this league. We’ve just got to keep doing the same things. We beat a pretty good team today.
“Overall, I thought kind of a back-and-forth game, but I thought we had a really strong third after they scored. I thought we were the ones that were pushing the play, and that was really nice to see today.”
Evgeni Malkin trimmed the deficit to 2-1 at 5:49 of the middle frame.
“[Nashville] has played really well,” Sullivan said. “They had won five in a row going into it. Their top line is dynamic. Forsberg is having a great year. They’ve got [Roman Josi and Ryan McDonagh] on the blue line. This is a good hockey team. We came out of the first period down; I thought our team played well. And that’s what we told them.
“We’ve just got to stay with it. We’ve got to dig in and try to work to get the next goal and claw back into the game. I give the players a lot of credit. I thought we did that.”
Bryan Rust scored at 2:26 of the third to tie the game, 2-2, and force the etra session.
“It’s always nice to score goals, but it’s always nice to get on the score sheet when you’ve been out for a little while,” Rust said. “It’s something that gives a little bit of confidence. Hopefully I can keep my game going in the right direction.”
Tristan Jarry made 23 saves in the loss.
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