Thursday night in Nashville saw the Colorado Avalanche stay close to the Predators for just over two periods. The Avs held a 2-1 lead midway through the second period before Craig Smith tied it for the Preds.
From there, it became the Filip Forsberg show as he struck twice, once on a deflection and once on a up ice rush that ended with a razzle dazzle and the game-winner to give the Preds a 3-2 lead en route to a 5-2 win and 1-0 series lead over the Avs.
“We hadn’t played our best hockey in the first two periods,” Forsberg said. “We just wanted to push. They did a good job of playing us hard in the first two, and I don’t think just that third period push was a good enough game.”
Pekka Rinne made 25 saves for the win.
“We’ve got a lot of heart, and I think we played hard tonight,” Avs head coach Jared Bednar said. “We played really hard. I think we had a real good start coming in here. They had a couple plays and times in the game when they pushed, and I felt like we pushed back. We missed on a couple of our real good opportunities.”
Nikita Zadorov and Blake Comeau scored to help the Avs build the 2-1 lead into the second period.
“I’m happy with the way we played,” Bednar said. “I felt like we did enough to almost earn a better result, but now we’re going to have to go and dig in even harder and make sure we earn the right result. We’re capable.”
Austin Watson and Colton Sissons also scored for the Preds.
“We just wanted to get better,” Sissons said. “We didn’t love our game. We were turning some pucks over and not executing all that well. I do think our best period was the third by far.”
[WATCH: Avalanche vs. Predators highlights | Complete Predators vs. Avalanche series coverage]
Jonathan Bernier made 26 saves in taking the loss.
“I think we played a good game. I think we played a really good 40 minutes, and then they got that goal, kind of a lucky bounce off of Forsberg. These guys are really good with a lead in the third period so that’s unfortunate, but I thought we gave ourselves a chance tonight to have the lead for a big part of the game,” the Avs’ Tyson Barrie said.
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