Ducks beat Predators to snap 5-game losing streak
By JIM DIAMOND The Associated Press
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Troy Terry scored a goal and assisted on another, Lukas Dostal made 39 saves and the Ducks defeated the Nashville Predators, 5-3, on Tuesday night.
Ryan Strome, Frank Vatrano, Mason McTavish and Radko Gudas also scored for the Ducks, who snapped a five-game losing streak. Alex Killorn and Jackson LaCombe each had two assists.
Alexandre Carrier, Philip Tomasino and Denis Gurianov scored and Juuse Saros made 28 saves for Nashville, which has lost two of three.
Strome scored the game’s first goal at 11:12 of the opening period.
Just eight seconds after serving a tripping penalty, Strome was sent in all alone on a breakaway by a 100-plus foot elevated backhand pass from the left faceoff dot in the Ducks’ zone by Killorn. Strome made a move on Saros before slipping a backhand between the goaltenders’ pads.
Vatrano doubled the Ducks’ lead at 14:11 of the first when he redirected LaCombe’s shot from the left side past Saros.
McTavish beat Saros with a tough-angle wrist shot just underneath the crossbar at 17:37 of the first with the Ducks on a power play to make it 3-0.
Terry scored at 3:05 of the second on a tap-in off of an Adam Henrique feed.
Like Strome, Gudas scored soon after serving a penalty, with Gudas’ coming at 3:16 of the third, 10 seconds after he left the penalty box.
Gudas’ goal was his sixth of the season, equaling a career high.
Carrier spoiled Dostal’s bid for his first career shutout with a short-handed goal at 9:45 of the third.
Gustav Nyquist assisted on Carrier’s goal, extending his point-scoring streak to nine games.
Tomasino and Gurianov scored late in the third.
The Ducks played most of the game without top line left wing Trevor Zegras, who was injured just 6:25 into the first period when he and Predators forward Juuso Parssinen got tangled up. Zegras fell awkwardly into the boards near the Nashville bench. He had to be helped off the ice and went straight to the Ducks’ locker room. At the first intermission, the Ducks announced that he would not return due to a lower-body injury.
Zegras was playing his eighth game back after missing 20 with a lower-body injury.
NOTES
The Ducks recalled defenseman Robert Hagg from the San Diego Gulls, their AHL affiliate. Hagg, 28, has 63 points (16 goals, 47 assists) with 284 penalty minutes in 338 career NHL games with Detroit, Florida, Buffalo and Philadelphia. The 6-foot-2, 210-pound Hagg, from Sweden, has four points (one goal, three assists) with a team-best plus-7 rating in 22 games with San Diego this season.
UP NEXT
The Ducks play at Carolina on Thursday at 4 p.m. PT.