In Nashville Tuesday night, the Predators shut out the Dallas Stars, 2-0, behind Pekka Rinne who made 26 saves; it was his seventh shutout of the season.
Nashville set a franchise record with their ninth straight win.
“It’s so much fun right now, nine wins in a row,” Rinne said. “We’re feeling good and the team is fairly healthy and clicking really good right now. It’s so much fun.”
The win pushed the Preds to 43-14-9 and they lead the Western Conference ladder race by six, the same clearance they have in the Central Division pursuit.
Ryan Hartman broke a scoreless tie early in the third period for Nashville.
“It felt good,” Hartman said. “We had a lot of chances coming into that period. It looked like they got a little tired. They played last night at home. We just tried to stick with it, and we knew if we kept playing hard the goals were going to come. That one felt good.”
The Stars dropped to 37-24-6 but still hold the first wild card spot in the west.
The nine-game streak has put the Predators in a strong position as the games wind down in the regular season; but now is not the time to take the foot off the pedal.
“We talk about everything in there,” Predators head coach Peter Laviolette said. “We talk about the division, the conference, the regular season. We talk about [Mike Fisher] coming back. We talk about putting your name on something. Those are all great opportunities for our club to fight for something, and I thought they did. I thought as the game went on and it was 0-0 for a while, I thought we fought to get that goal, and then I thought we fought really hard to keep it there.”
Nick Bonino sealed the win with an empty-netter late.
[WATCH: All Stars vs. Predators highlights]
Kari Lehtonen made 32 saves in the loss.
“It was a hard game, a hard game for a lot of our guys,” Stars head coach Ken Hitchcock said. “That’s a [heck] of a hockey club over there. They’re really deep. They play the game the right way. They’re a hard team to play against. Our goalie gave us a chance going into the third period, and we were the first team to give it away twice.”
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