The Nashville Predators maintained a level game plan and withstood the Dallas home ice advantage with a 3-2 win Monday night to take a 2-1 series lead over the Stars.
Mikael Granlund scored the game-winner when he struck at 11:41 of the third to snap a 2-2 tie.
It was a bit a disappointment for the Stars to surrender home ice back to the Preds with the loss.
“You know, never get too high, never get too low,” Stars head coach Jim Montgomery said. “It’s 2-1. I think we’ve been the better team two out of three games. If we keep playing like that, usually the hockey gods get back on your side.”
Pekka Rinne was busy in the Predators’ net and made 40 saves to hold off Dallas.
“We blocked a lot of shots and the rebounds we gave up they didn’t end up on their sticks,” Rinne said. “So it was a good night.”
Mats Zuccarello and Tyler Seguin had the goals for Dallas.
“They forecheck hard and at the same time, when they turn pucks over, they try to get them to the net and have people in front of me,” said Rinne, who won twice in Dallas during the regular season. “They got a bunch of shots during their power plays. But all in all, I still think we played well defensively.”
Rocco Grimaldi and Filip Forsberg also scored for Nashville.
“There are things that I think we can do better, so we’ll take a look at that and prepare ourselves for Game 4,” Nashville head coach Peter Laviolette said.
[WATCH: All Predators vs. Stars Game 3 highlights | Complete series coverage]
Ben Bishop made 25 saves in the loss.
“I don’t know if we’re playing if it’s not for our goalies and especially Ben. Our players got to pick him up for how many times he’s picked us up, right,” Montgomery said after the loss.
You must be logged in to post a comment.