Predators strike late to upend Canucks
NASHVILLE 2 VANCOUVER 1
VANCOUVER — James Neal scored late in the third period to give the Nashville Predators a 2-1 win over the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday.
Craig Smith also found the back of the net for Nashville (23-18-8), which played its third game of a four-game Western road swing. The trip has included 4-1 wins in both Winnipeg and Edmonton and will finish today in Calgary.
Predators goalie Pekka Rinne stopped 28 shots.
Brandon Sutter, playing his first game since missing 33 because of hernia surgery, scored for the Canucks (20-19-11), who played their last game before the all-star break. Vancouver just returned from a 10-day, six-game road trip that resulted in a 3-2-1 record.
Ryan Miller made 17 saves in his first home start since Dec. 9 for Vancouver.
The Preds broke through with 4:44 left in the game on a bad Canucks line change. Neal took a pass from defenceman Barrett Jackman and fired the puck from the faceoff dot, beating Miller glove side for the go-ahead goal.
Vancouver had a power-play chance to end the game, but couldn’t force overtime.
Nashville jumped out to a quick 1-0 lead less than two minutes in when Mike Fisher set up Smith, who lifted the puck over Miller’s shoulder after easily getting around Canucks defenceman Ben Hutton.
Sutter, thrusted into the centre position on the top line due to Henrik Sedin’s injury, found immediate chemistry with Daniel Sedin. Sutter took a beautiful return pass from Sedin and onetimed it passed Rinne to tie the game at 11:39. It was Sutter’s first game since sustaining a sports hernia on Nov. 10.
Sutter had a glorious chance on a breakaway minutes later, but missed the open net with Rinne out of position.
The Predators shot sparingly in the first and second. Even with two power plays, including a tripping call on Matt Bartkowski midway in the second, Nashville had only 11 shots going into the third compared to Vancouver’s 24.
However, Rinne was tested more often, especially during a Canucks power play with five minutes left in the second when he made saves on Sedin and Sven Baertschi to keep the score deadlocked.
LOOSE PUCKS: Vancouver forward Brandon Prust was a healthy scratch for a third straight game. ... Henrik Sedin missed his fourth straight game with a upper-body injury.
Jackets 5, Canadiens 2
MONTREAL — Brandon Dubinsky and Cam Atkinson each had a goal and an assist to give the visiting Columbus Blue Jackets a 5-2 victory over the slumping Montreal Canadiens in the second game of a home-and-home series.
Boone Jenner, Scott Hartnell and Brandon Saad, in an empty net, also scored for the Blue Jackets (19-27-5). Rookie goaltender Joonas Korpisalo stopped 27-of-29 shots for his fifth win of the season — replacing the injured Sergei Bobrovsky.
Korpisalo improved to 4-0-1 in his last five starts.
Devante Smith-Pelly and Alex Galchenyuk scored for Montreal (24-22-4). Ben Scrivens, still winless in a Canadiens uniform, made 21 saves in defeat.
Montreal lost captain Max Pacioretty to injury midway through the second period after he took a P.K. Subban slapshot to the left side of his face. Pacioretty, the team’s leading scorer with 19 goals, did not return in the third.
The Blue Jackets, which started the day last in the NHL standings, have now won back-toback games versus Montreal for the first time since 2011. Atkinson scored a hat trick to sink the Canadiens 5-2 on Monday in Columbus.