In Nashville, Pekka Rinne made 30 saves as the Predators overcame an early 0-1 deficit to defeat the visiting Buffalo Sabres, 2-1, on Saturday.
Nashville’s Ryan Johansen scored to tie the game, 1-1.
“It feels great,” Johansen said. “We didn’t like our last game and really didn’t want to go into the [All-Star] break without executing a good game plan. We executed a good game plan tonight. We’ll go a reset the batteries a little bit, come back fresh and come back ready to work.”
Sam Reinhart had the Sabres’ lone goal.
“It was a very good hockey game,” Sabres coach Ralph Krueger said. “They definitely came out with their A-game. We expected that. They came out extremely strong on the forecheck, and we weathered that storm early and actually liked the way the game was being managed until the final 10 minutes. We had a couple of really long [defensive] zone shifts where we needed to clear them and get out of our zone. Once they felt that, they seemed to get a surge of energy.”
Craig Smith scored the game-winner in the third period.
“I thought we played really well,” Smith said. “I thought we took care of the puck. I thought we hung on to pucks, which it’s hard to play against that. I thought we were able to create some opportunities off of it and easily could’ve had a couple more.”
Nashville improved to 22-18-7.
“I thought [Johansen] probably played his best game that I’ve seen with him,” Predators coach John Hynes said after his sixth game since replacing Peter Laviolette on Jan. 7. “He had a tough assignment. He was basically matched against Eichel’s line all night. He was good on face-offs. I thought he moved his feet. I think he’s been pretty good defensively so far since I’ve been with him, but I thought tonight he had more on an impact offensively too.”
[WATCH: All Sabres vs. Predators highlights]
Linus Ullmark was a victim of non support from his offense; he made 35 saves in the loss.
“I thought Rinne played a very good game,” Krueger said. “We didn’t put much pressure on him in the first 10 minutes of the game, but from there on in we had lots of point-blank opportunities that he took care of.”
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