In Detroit, Sam Gagner scored two of his three goals in the third period to help the Red Wings overcome the Nashville Predators, 5-2, on Thursday night.
“I thought I’ve played pretty well this season, but I didn’t feel great about tonight until I got that first goal,” Gagner said. “Then I end up with three. That’s how things are in this league. You just have to keep working.”
Jonathan Bernier made 37 saves to get the win with offensive support for a change.
Mikael Granlund scored for the Preds, and Erik Haula tied the game at 2-2 with his goal in the third period.
“This one hurts,” Haula said. “We’ve been playing better as a group, got a couple wins, and it felt like we were trending in the right direction before tonight.”
Luke Glendening also scored for the Red Wings.
“We’ve struggled to put the puck in the net this season and we’ve had to battle some adversity, so tonight was huge,” Glendening said. “When we did have some breakdowns, [Bernier] was huge. He’s been great for us all season.”
Adam Erne scored to make it 4-1 before Gagner completed his hat trick into an empty net.
“I’ve been around a lot of two-game series in my coaching career, going back to college, and it is very, very hard to sweep a team,” Detroit head coach Jeff Blashill said. “The reality of human nature is that the team that loses the first game is going to dig in to a greater degree for the second one. I think we’ve shown some good resilience in those situations this season.”
Pekka Rinne made 27 saves in the loss.
“I think we were a little too loose defending rushes and we gave them too many chances,” Nashville head coach John Hynes said. “And we weren’t doing enough offensively to score goals. I think we only had two or three Grade-A chances going into the third period.”
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