Coach Peter Laviolette and the Nashville Predators can enjoy their upcoming five-day break regret-free following an amazing five-goal rally Sunday night.
Filip Forsberg scored a short-handed goal 6:02 into the third period to put the Predators ahead to stay, and Nashville rallied from a three-goal deficit to beat the Dallas Stars 5-3 on Sunday night.
Roman Josi scored twice, Calle Jarnkrok got the tying goal and Mike Fisher added an empty-netter. James Neal and P.K. Subban each had two assists as Nashville snapped a two-game skid.
"They were awesome," Laviolette said.
With the rally, the Predators avoided their second loss in two days on home ice. Embarrassed in a 7-4 defeat to Florida on Saturday, they came out feisty from the opening faceoff, only to give up the first three goals.
"That was a great win no matter how you look at it," Fisher said. "After yesterday, we put a solid effort in on the back-to-back, and to come back like that, those go into the memory bank when we know we can do that going forward too, because we're going to have to I'm sure down the stretch."
Jamie Benn had a goal and an assist, Patrick Sharp and Devin Shore had a goal apiece and Tyler Seguin had three assists for the Stars. Dallas has lost five of six.
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"You go into a third period with a 3-1 lead, and your life is on the line," Benn said. "That's the effort, that's the result that we get. It's unacceptable. I'm not saying I'm perfect. I'm not saying I played my best game, but we're fighting for our lives, and that's what we put out there for 20 minutes."
With the win, Nashville evened up the season series between the Central Division teams at 2-2.
The Predators came out very chippy against another team that likes to fight. The result was a pair of fights within the first minute and a third midway through the period. Dallas got a full two minutes of 5-on-3 off the second fight that also featuring penalties on Subban and forward Austin Watson just 45 seconds into the game.
The Stars only had Esa Lindell hit the post.
Benn scored his 18th this season on the man advantage at 12:24 of the first with a wrist shot from the left circle. Dallas took advantage of its second 5-on-3 late in the period when Sharp beat goalie Pekka Rinne with a wrist shot from the left side at 15:46 for a 2-0 lead.
Shore gave Dallas a 3-0 lead with the Stars' third power-play goal at 12:02 with a snap shot from the right on a nice pass from Brett Ritchie. The Stars went 3 of 9 on the power play.
"That's a tough one where I thought our power play was going really well and did a lot of good things," Dallas coach Lindy Ruff said. "That hurts."
Nashville finally got on the board at 15:25 when Josi scored his eighth this season on a wrist shot unassisted. Then Craig Smith had a chance off the ensuing faceoff, earning his first career penalty shot. But Kari Lehtonen, playing for the second straight night, easily stopped Smith's shot off his pad.
Josi scored his second on the game's third 5-on-3 just 45 seconds into the third period. Jarnkrok skated up the right side and beat Lehtonen stick-side for his 11th before Forsberg gave Nashville the lead with his goal off a breakaway at 6:02.
Notes
Subban reached 300 career points with his two assists. ... Before the game, Nashville put F Cody McLeod on injured reserve and activated F Harry Zolnierczyk. ... Josi now has a goal in three straight games for the first time in his career. ... Stars D Jamie Oleksiak played his 100th NHL career game. ... Seguin has 10 points (four goals, six assists) over his last 10 games. ... Predators F Viktor Arvidsson had an assist and now has nine points (six goals, three assists) in his last six games.
Up Next
Stars: Visit Winnipeg on Tuesday night.
Predators: Visit Minnesota on Saturday night after five-day break.
