In Ottawa, Juuse Saros made 38 saves and the Nashville Predators blanked the Senators, 3-0 on Monday night.
“I felt good out there, mostly,” Saros said. “I had a lot of help today. We had a lot of blocks and our penalty kill was really good. I’ve got to give some credit to the guys.
“I’m just trying to see the puck and read the plays. Obviously, I’ve had some puck luck in these [recent] games, as well.”
Saros made 64 saves in his previous game.
“We didn’t let him have 60-plus [shots] this game, so that made it a little easier on him, and then he stopped all of them,” Predators forward Filip Forsberg said. “We’ve just got to try and keep it around 30 [shots against] and he’ll be good.”
The Preds improved to 19-14-6.
“I thought the penalty killers did a really good job tonight,” Predators coach John Hynes said. “Obviously, we got some big saves from [Saros] on the penalty kill, but their power play is threatening. They had a lot of different looks. They attack you at the top, they do a really good job down around the goal line, obviously with [Brady] Tkachuk. That was a big difference in the game. One of the goals was to stay out of the box, and we certainly didn’t do that as much, but the penalty kill came through.”
Roman Josi scored in the first period, his 150th NHL career goal, for a 1-0 lead to Nashville.
“It’s always nicer if you get a win,” Josi said of scoring his 150th. “It’s pretty cool. I wasn’t even aware of it. [Ryan] McDonagh actually told me. It’s pretty cool. I’ve been fortunate to play in this league for a long time, and obviously I’m enjoying the moment, so it’s definitely pretty cool.”
The Predators then grabbed a 2-0 advantage on a marker from Jeremy Lauzon before the end of the first.
Ottawa dropped to 18-19-3.
“Our power play has won us plenty of games,” Senators coach D.J. Smith said. “Tonight was a night where we needed them to score, and they didn’t, but I have no doubt that they’ll get hot.”
The game stayed 2-0 until the third period when Forsberg pushed the lead to 3-0, and the final score.
“We had a few too many turnovers, and they capitalized,” Senators defenseman Jake Sanderson said. “As a defenseman, I feel like us [defensemen], we need to a better job getting our shots through. They were blocking a lot of shots, credit to them, but as a [defenseman], you’ve got to change the angle a little and get it through because we know our forwards are down there waiting for it.”
Cam Talbot made 33 saves in the Senators loss.
“I thought there were a lot of guys that played hard, but there were a couple of guys, you turn pucks over and it ends up in the back of your net,” Smith said. “You can’t. Not in this league. You have to know the time and the place. You can’t give up odd-man rushes, and that’s what we did, and both of them ended up in the net.”
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