Ryan O’Reilly posted his sixth career hat trick to lead the visiting Nashville Predators a 4-1 victory over the Calgary Flames on Saturday.
Fedor Svechkov netted one goal and one assist while Filip Forsberg collected a pair of assists for the Predators, who won for the second time in as many nights and collected their fifth road win this season.
Nashville’s Justus Annunen stopped 31 shots, sparkling from the drop of the puck with 11 first-period saves when the Flames had a huge edge in play but couldn’t take a lead.
Among his clutch saves were one on Nazem Kadri in the opening minutes, another on Jonathan Huberdeau breakaway near the midway point and a third on MacKenzie Weegar’s wraparound attempt when it was a one-goal game in the final frame.
Annunen also had good luck with Andrei Kuzmenko and Matt Coronato ringing shots off the post.
Mikael Backlund scored for the Flames, who have lost three of their last four games. Dustin Wolf made 24 saves.
After Calgary dominated the first period but failed to score, O’Reilly made it 1-0 with a power-play goal at 4:21 of the second period. He was on the spot for the loose puck when Svechkov sent it to the front of the net as he headed behind it.
O’Reilly doubled the lead with another man-advantage marker at 11:37 of the second, finishing a short pass from Jonathan Marchessault after Wolf stopped the point shot.
The Flames surrendered a power-play goal for the sixth consecutive game and finished 0-for-3 on the man-advantage Saturday.
Backlund injected some much-needed energy into Calgary with 98 seconds remaining in the second period when he won a puck battle at the boards, worked toward the net and unloaded a slap shot that found twine.
However, Svechkov restored Nashville’s two-goal edge at 9:19 of the third period when he was quick to grab the puck after a face-off in Calgary territory and tuck it past Wolf.
O’Reilly’s empty-net goal with 1:27 on the clock rounded out the scoring.
–Field Level Media
