In Nashville Thursday night, the Predators built a 3-0 lead and held off the Anaheim Ducks late in a 4-2 win.
It was the 10th straight for Nashville.
“Everything is great about the streak, but we’re focused on the process and what we need to do to be ready come playoff time,” the Predators’ Ryan Johansen said. “We’re just taking it day by day and looking at our team game and what we can always be improving on. These wins are obviously nice as they keep coming along, too.”
Pekka Rinne made 31 saves to pick up the win.
The loss dropped the Ducks to 34-22-12 and now trail the San Jose Sharks by a points after the Sharks defeated the St Louis Blues, 2-0.
Johansen, Craig Smith, Austin Watson, and Viktor Arvidsson scored for Nashville.
“Great team over there,” Johansen said. “I expect to see them in the playoffs again for sure. Nice to get the advantage on them again tonight and keep our streak going.”
Rickard Rakell tried to rally the Ducks in the third period and scored twice.
“We’ve got to be harder on the puck,” Ducks head coach Randy Carlyle said. “We’ve got to win more 50-50 battles. It showed in our face-off prowess. They were much better than we were. I think we had one guy that was over 50 percent. All those little games within the game, you’ve got to be better at. It’s not like we didn’t compete, we just didn’t play at the level that we’re capable of playing.”
[WATCH:Â All Ducks vs. Predators highlights]
John Gibson made 24 saves in taking the loss.
“I think it’s probably a couple of playoff series, it’s playing them in the regular season. There’s just a little bit of a rivalry there, I guess, with the amount of times we’ve played them and what’s been at stake,” Predators head coach Peter Laviolette said of the rivalry with the Ducks. “We always know it’s going to be a physical game. We always know that we’ve got to play tough in the battles. We talk about those things. I thought our guys did a really good job.”
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