Luke Evangelista scored two goals and Juuse Saros made 34 saves to record his 200th career win in the Nashville Predators’ 3-1 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday in Raleigh, N.C.
Nashville’s Michael Bunting scored a power-play goal and defenseman Marc Del Gaizo notched two assists.
Former Hurricanes defenseman Brady Skjei set up a goal for the Predators (27-36-8, 62 points), who have won two of their last three games following a four-game losing streak.
Carolina’s Taylor Hall followed up his sixth career hat trick by scoring a goal in the second period.
Seth Jarvis had an assist to record his 200th career point and Pyotr Kochetkov turned aside 13 shots for the Hurricanes (43-24-4, 90 points), who have lost two of three following an eight-game win streak.
Skjei set up Kieffer Bellows for a one timer that initially was denied by Kochetkov. The goaltender, however, lost sight of the puck and Bunting alertly tapped it home from the doorstep to open the scoring at 5:14 of the first period.
Bunting’s goal was his 16th of the season and second in seven games with the Predators.
Carolina’s Tyson Jost hit the iron at one end before Filip Forsberg set up Evangelista for an easy conversion to double Nashville’s advantage at 4:01 of the second period. Evangelista used a pretty dangle move to freeze Kochetkov before tucking the puck past the netminder.
Hall responded just over two minutes later with his team on the power play to halve the deficit.
The former Hart Trophy recipient accepted a feed from Jarvis at the blue line and skated into the zone before backhanding the puck past Saros.
Evangelista regained Nashville’s two-goal lead with 7:12 remaining in the third period. He jumped off the bench to join the play before taking a feed from Ryan O’Reilly and beating Kochetkov for his ninth goal of the season.
–Field Level Media
