In Nashville, the Predators scored in two, three-goal bunches on Tuesday night downed the Montreal Canadiens. 6-3.
Juuse Saros made 24 saves in the Nashville win.
“When you have that, it’s a recipe to be able to win regularly, where it doesn’t put so much pressure on certain guys to be able to score,” Nashville coach John Hynes said. “When you have depth scoring in your lineup, it certainly gives your team the best chance to win on a regular basis, and I also think it creates internal competition. … If you want to get the ice time and you want to play, you have to be able to keep up with the groups that are playing well.”
Cody Glass, Colton Sissons, and Mattias Ekholm scored to give Nashville a 3-0 lead.
Cole Caufield and Josh Anderson scored after the first three-goal outburst by the Predators to cut the lead to 3-2.
“We’ve just got to figure out a way to play better defensively,” Montreal defenseman David Savard said. “We gave up Grade A chances, and those are the ones that hurt. We play good sometimes, and sometimes we miss an assignment or something and give [up] a Grade A chance. It’s hard on our goalies, it’s hard to make those saves when great players are coming down the pipe.”
Roman Josi, Thomas Novak, and Matt Duchene then scored for a 6-2 lead to Nashville.
“I felt tonight offensively, I thought we transitioned and broke [out with] the puck well,” Montreal coach Martin St. Louis said. “We played with the puck, possessed across the line with the puck more than we have in the past. Happy with that, I don’t think that’s our problem.”
The Preds improved to 16-14-6.
“Usually when you shoot the puck, good things happen,” Ekholm said. “Our power play last year, in my opinion, was the biggest reason we got in the playoffs. So, we know we need to get it going, and we have the same personnel so we can do it. It’s a matter of getting some confidence again.”
The Habs’ Brendan Gallagher scored to make the 6-3 final score.
Sam Montembeault made 28 saves in the Canadiens loss.
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