In Nashville Tuesday, the Predators outlasted the Colorado Avalanche to take a 4-3 win.
Roman Josi scored on the power play early in the third for the game-winner.
Viktor Arvidsson, James Neal and P.K. Subban all scored for Nashville.
“Our forwards, the one thing about this team since I’ve been here is they use the [defense],” Subban said. “It’s something that obviously I like to play with, obviously with forwards that like to use the defense because it’s easy for us to generate offense that way when they grind and cycle down low.”
Neal was returning to the Preds lineup after missing the last four games with an upper-body injury.
“It was obviously a good feeling when you get back to play with your teammates,” Neal said. “It makes it a little easier when you’re on home ice. It was good to be back and a good win.”
WATCH: All Avalanche vs. Predators highlights
“He doesn’t need a lot of room and he doesn’t need a lot of space. That’s a perfect example of it, but what was really good about having James back there is it just provided a good balance in our lines and in the lineup to be able to roll them over,” Nashville head coach Peter Laviolette said of Neal.. “I thought that his line was real good and gave us a nice attack, being able to have a balance of offensive power on each line. Every time you send somebody over the boards, there’s a chance. He just adds depth to that.”
Semyon Varlamov took the loss for the Avs on 28 saves.
“For me, that was the hardest we’ve played, that was the best game we’ve played in a couple of weeks,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “We had some chances to square that game up, and it was a tough way to fall behind on the 5-on-3 so we’ve just got to keep sticking with it.”
Nathan MacKinnon scored for the Avs and Matt Duchene had two markers in the loss.
Pekka Rinne picked up the win on 25 saves.
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