On Monday night, the Nashville Predators ended a two-game slide with a 5-2 win over the visiting Ottawa Senators.
Pekka Rinne made 36 saves to pick up the win as the Predators improved to 39-14-9.
Viktor Arvidsson led the offense with two goals in the victory.
“I think we played great,” Arvidsson said. “I think we played attack-mentality hockey. Our [defense] was up in the play and slamming walls, and we shot the puck a lot. I felt like it was a great 60 minutes.”
Ryan Ellis, Roman Josi, and Craig Smith also struck for goals for Nashville.
“I think we just kept it simple and tried to shoot a lot of pucks,” Josi said. “I mean, sometimes, with the power play, that’s just how it goes. Sometimes you play really well. You have a lot of chances, but they don’t go in. Sometimes you don’t do anything different, but you get two power-play goals. That’s just how it goes. You’ve just got to make sure you don’t get frustrated and keep it simple.”
The Preds jumped into a tie for the top spot in the Central Division with the idle Winnipeg Jets.
“Every team is winning, it feels like, in our division,” Filip Forsberg said. “Two [losses] in a row is even too much, so definitely not three in a row. That would hurt you too much.”
Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Max McCormick scored for the Senators.
“I thought we came out real good,” Ottawa head coach Guy Boucher said. “I thought we were very good. It seemed that our turnovers and bad bounces ended up in the back of our net, and when it was on the other side, it didn’t happen. We [had] almost 40 shots here. I think we went toe-to-toe with them, so that was good. In the end, we weren’t able to capitalize. We had a lot of chances, and their goalie played great.”
[WATCH: All Senators vs. Predators highlights]
Craig Anderson made 36 saves in taking the loss.
“Even tonight you could see, we played really good. We were right there. It’s just too bad. It was just some bad bounces and some turnovers that normally don’t happen, and it cost us,” Boucher said after the loss. “Sometimes you get turnovers and they don’t cost you and you forget about them. Those ones cost us, and we’ve got to play the same way next game for 60 minutes and get rid of those turnovers and we should have a chance.”
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