In Nashville, the Predators got a much needed win with a 2-1 decision over the visiting Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday afternoon.
Mattias Ekholm returned from injury (six games) and struck for two goals in the middle frame for the all the offense the Preds would need.
“[Ekholm] has been a key part of this team for a long time,” the Predators’ Filip Forsberg said. “I think guys played really well stepping in for him, but obviously, we were very happy that he’s back. First and foremost, he’s very solid defensively, a good skater, can defend in a lot of ways. He plays hard and physical and with a good stick. A couple of goals, one laser and one muffin.”
Juuse Saros made 29 saves to preserve the win.
“I thought the first one was pretty much what I wanted,” Ekholm said. “The second was one of those where you just throw it at the net and it went in. Call it a muffin, call it whatever, but happy that it went in. I feel like the first however many games I played before I got hurt, I had some looks and had some shots that maybe normally go in, and they just bounced out somehow. I think tonight was maybe a little bit of a reward for that I guess.”
Nashville improved to 9-11-0.
Cam Atkinson staked the Jackets to a 1-0 lead in the first period; the goal came off a 2-on-0 breakaway.
“Every game is so important, just because it’s a condensed season,” Atkinson said. “We’re almost halfway through the season. We have to figure out how to play the right way on a regular basis in order to have success. We can’t just turn it on one time and turn it off the next and expect to win in this league.”
Columbus dropped to 8-9-5.
“I thought we had a pretty good first period,” Atkinson said. “I thought we had some chances on the power play. We made a push toward the end there. For whatever reason, it seems like there’s like 10 minutes in the second period of every game that we just kind of take our foot off the gas, and that’s when bad things happen to us.”
Joonas Korpisalo made 31 saves in the loss.
“I’m not down,” Columbus head coach John Tortorella said. “There’s no sense in being down. There’s no sense of drilling them and being frustrated. We have simply got to work ourselves out of this and try to gain some confidence within our whole squad as far as making puck plays.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.