Grimaldi leads Predators over Detroit

In Nashville, the Predators opened up the offense in a 7-1 win over the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday night.

Rocco Grimaldi scored four goals for the Preds.

“I was more in shock,” Grimaldi said. “When you don’t score for a really long time, you almost forget what it feels like. And then after the third one, the three of us, me and [Nick Cousins and Erik Haula] were just in the corner laughing. I don’t know how fast it was. It was just under 10 minutes I think. Fifteen games with nothing and then three goals in 10 minutes. We just were laughing like ‘What is going on?’ I feel like my legs were shaking.”

Juuse Saros made 20 saves to get the win.

The Predators improved to 16-17-1.

Bobby Ryan scored the lone Detroit goal

“It’s obviously totally unacceptable,” Detroit head coach Jeff Blashill said. “You can’t have nights where you give away easy goals like we gave away tonight.”

Mikael Granlund and Mathieu Olivier scored for Detroit to give them a 6-1 lead.

“I was really, really happy for [Grimaldi],” Olivier said. “He’s been telling me the last few games that he’s due for one. I saw him get the first one early, and then he was just gone for the rest of the game and scored three more. It’s awesome to see. I think everybody was really happy for him.”

Eeli Tolvanen also scored for the Preds.