In Nashville Thursday night, Pekka Rinne made 31 saves to backstop the Predators to
Pekka Rinne made 31 saves in shutout of Oilers – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
a 2-0 win over the Edmonton Oilers.
“We’ve had a really good few weeks here,” Rinne said. “This is the time of the year where you try to make separation and also catch up to some of the teams. Huge two points for us.”
The Preds moved to 25-18-8 and are 8-2-1 over their 11 games.
“That was a playoff game,” Oilers coach Todd McLellan said. “I thought it had playoff intensity. We’re at that time of year. We didn’t make many mistakes. We made a few and they capitalized on it. I thought they had more players going than we did. We missed some guys that we have to count on. There’s a few players that played on the power play, played a lot of minutes and didn’t even get a shot on goal tonight.”
The Oilers dropped their second game and fell back to 28-17-8; they have lost three of their last 10 games.
“My quick assessment is we’re making the wrong choices. We’re allowing, not the players or the opposition to beat us, we’re allowing our systems to beat us. We’re kind of playing into their hands with a few turnovers and such. — Oilers forward Matt Hendricks
Nashville goals came from Viktor Arvidsson and Ryan Johansen.
Johansen’s goal came off a set of passes down low and he potted the second goal of the game on a perfect feed from Filip Forsberg .
“I haven’t tried that in my whole NHL career, so for a guy to have confidence against NHL defensemen and be able to pull that stuff off, it’s impressive,” Johansen said. “Even as [Forsberg’s] linemate watching that, he really does have an elite level of talent.”
WATCH: All Oilers vs. Predators highlights
Cam Talbot made 25 saves in the loss.
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