In Nashville, the Predators lost ground in their race with the Chicago Blackhawks on 
Saturday. Chicago defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets, 4-3, while the Predators were being shut out by the Tampa Bay Lightning.
“The first period was the least amount of scoring chances they had,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “It looks bad because of the shots if you’re looking at those stats, but [Vasilevskiy] could see them and I think that was the big thing for us. What I didn’t like was just the fact that we were spending so much time in our [defensive] zone. We kind of figured out what we had to do there in the second and third. It got better for us.”
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 36 saves to get the shutout, his fourth of the season.
“He’s so good for us every single night,” the Lightning’s Yanni Gourde, who had a goal and an assist. “We can trust him every single night. It’s amazing what he does back there. That first period, they had close to 20 shots, and there were some grade A’s in there and he turned back all of them. He’s so good for us every single game.”
The Lightning were relentless with a goal in each period.
Ross Colton and Erik Cernak scored for Tampa.
Tampa improved to 28-11-2.
Gourde added an empty-net goal late in the third period.
“In the first period, I’d say that we weren’t really skating much,” Gourde said. “We were maybe forcing plays a little bit. We were too far from each other, so we had a hard time breaking the puck out. After that we kind of came back to a little bit more of our identity, playing north and playing fast.”
The Preds dropped to 22-19-1.
“I felt better than expected,” Nashville’s Ryan Ellis said after playing for the first time in 20 games. “The team as a whole, it’s like night and day. I feel when I get hurt, every night was a battle and we were working and nothing was happening for us. Tonight, it felt like years past where we were buzzing in the [offensive] zone, making good plays, getting chances. Obviously, we didn’t connect on any, but I think we had three breakaways, a couple of 2-on-1s.”
Pekka Rinne made 31 saves in the loss.
“Guys were just making plays, guys were holding pucks and working hard,” Ellis said. “I think we deserved better, but give the other team credit. They played well and well enough to win.”
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