Penguins down Nashville, 3-1

In Nashville, the Pittsburgh Penguins burned the Predators on Tuesday night in a 3-1 decision, after the Preds had taken a 1-0lead in the third period.

Mark Jankowski scored to give the Predators the 1-0 advantage.

“When I got the puck on the turnover there, I looked up and saw I had some time,” Jankowski said. “So, I thought I would see what I could do, and just waited out the goalie there.”

Sidney Crosby tied the game, 1-1, in the third.

“I think we’re getting there,” Crosby said. “I think we’d still like to limit the chances against and make sure we’re not putting ourselves in bad spots just from our own doing, make teams work for their chances if they’re going to get them.”

Tristan Jarry made 24 saves in the Pens win.

The Penguins improved to 30-21-9.

“We kind of went toe-to-toe the whole game,” Nashville captain Roman Josi said. “It was kind of a back-and-forth game. We had some chances. They had some chances. Just couldn’t find a way to win it, but I felt like our effort was good. We played well.”

Nashville dropped to 29-23-6 off their first loss in four games.

“They get a deflection, it goes right on their stick and then Crosby split the [defensemen]. That’s a tough one to defend,” Predators coach John Hynes said. “I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a breakdown. That was a break. We had the same thing in the first period. They scored on theirs. We didn’t score on ours.”

Jason Zucker put the Penguins ahead, 2-1 with 1:39 left on the game clock.

“On that one, it was a good forecheck,” Zucker said about his goal. “[Rickard Rakell and Evgeni Malkin] both held onto pucks at some point there [and] It just kind of popped out. Honestly, I didn’t even look at the net, I was just trying to get it on net, and it happened to go in. Kind of a lucky one for me there.”

Bryan Rust added an empty-net goal with even seconds left on the clock for the 3-1 final.