In Los Angeles, Filip Forsberg and Matt Duchene scored in the first period to give the Nashville Predators a 2-0 lead over the Kings en route to a 4-2 win on Thursday night.
Juuse Saros made 46 saves in the Nashville win.
“That’s what you need. When you look at teams that are able to win a lot in the league, you are not going to be at your best every night,” Predators coach John Hynes said. “The top teams have excellent goaltending. He’s a key guy for us. The consistency level he can play with has been pretty impressive.”
The Predators improved to 22-11-2.
“I think everyone kind of knows what we need to do to be successful,” Saros said. “It is good when everyone is chipping in and we are keeping our foot on the gas.”
Martin Frk (power-play) and Dustin Brown were the LA strikers, to cut the deficit to 2-3.
“If you look at our 5-on-5 play, I think we outplayed them the whole night from start to finish,” Brown said. “Give up two power-play goals and [an] empty-net [goal], it’s one of those games where 5-on-5, I think we were the better team, but it’s not always the way it goes.”
The Kings dropped to 16-13-5.
“Let’s face it, he did what we asked him to do coming up here, shoot the puck in the net,” Kings head coach Todd McLellan said. “He was the one guy that finished on the power play. Good for him. He’s not afraid to shoot it.”
Matt Luff scored in the middle frame to push the Nashville lead to 3-0.
“Had a tough couple years there, and to get one [point] there is huge,” Luff said.
Yakov Trenin hit for an empty-net goal with 71 seconds left, for the 4-2 final.
“I thought it was a hard-fought game. L.A. played fast and tenacious,” Hynes said. “We found a way. Our special teams were big factors. … You have to find different ways to win and we were able to do that.”
Jonathan Quick made 16 saves in the LA loss.
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