In Nashville, Juuse Saros made 21 saves for the Predators in a 6-1 win over the St Louis Blues on Saturday afternoon.
The Predators improved to 38-29-8, and moved to within three points of the Winnipeg Jets for the second wild card in the Western Conference.
“Winnipeg won last night (6-2 against the Detroit Red Wings), so this was a big one for us,” Predators coach John Hynes said. “We wanted to play in meaningful games down the stretch. … When you look at the group that’s really come in and the next-man up mentality, night in and night out for the most part, we’re giving ourselves a chance to win.”
Tommy Novak and Cody Glass scored power play goals in the first period for a 2-0 lead to the Preds after 20 minutes.
“I thought our energy right out of the gate was really good,” Nashville’s Luke Evangelista said. “It was a really good bounceback for us. We didn’t play our best game in Pittsburgh (a 2-0 loss on Thursday) and we knew we needed to bounce back. We were getting a ton of shots and a ton of chances, so that contributed to our offense right away.”
Colton Sissons and Evangelista struck in the middle frame to balloon the advantage to 4-0.
The Blues dropped to 35-35-6.
“We got what we deserved today, I think,” St. Louis forward Brayden Schenn said. “I don’t think we had even close to our best game and turned over pucks and lost battles and probably took a team lightly that’s fighting for a playoff spot. That’s what happens when you don’t show up.”
Calle Rosen was the lone striker for the Blues; his goal came at 8:48 of the third to cut the Predators lead to 4-1.
“I think we were hungry on the forecheck,” Sissons said. “We were turning a lot of pucks over, just sustaining some offensive time. You spend some time in the zone there and get some pucks to the net, good things happen.”
Nashville replied with goals from Yakov Trenin and Philip Tomasino (power play) for the 6-1 final.
Thomas Greiss made 29 saves in the Blues loss.
“That wasn’t a great game right from the get-go,” Blues coach Craig Berube said. “Second period, we had some opportunities on the power play, did some good things, but other than that, it was not very good.”
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