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Thatcher Demko made 31 saves and Linus Karlsson scored his first NHL goal in the Vancouver Canucks’ 3-1 road win over the Nashville Predators on Wednesday.

The Canucks have won three consecutive games, tying their second-longest winning streak of the season.

Demko stopped 31 of 32 shots in arguably his best performance of an inconsistent and injury-marred season. Demko made several impressive saves in the face of increasing pressure from the Predators, who outshot Vancouver by a 19-9 margin over the last two periods.

Nils Hoglander and Pius Suter scored the Canucks’ other goals.

Quinn Hughes collected two assists Wednesday, and leads all NHL defensemen in both assists (44) and points (56). Hughes has 11 points (five goals, six assists) over his ongoing seven-game points streak.

Nashville has lost two straight games on the heels of its season-best five-game winning streak.

Tommy Novak scored the Predators’ only goal Wednesday, and Juuse Saros stopped 19 of 21 shots.

A blocked shot from Elias Pettersson 7:11 into the first period set up Vancouver’s first goal. Pettersson’s block sprung the Canucks for a rush down the ice, and Hoglander’s goal finished off a nice passing play.

The Predators responded just 90 seconds later. Zachary L’Heureux sent a pass in front of the net that Novak didn’t cleanly take, but the puck deflected off Novak’s skate and into Vancouver’s net.

The Canucks had only three shots in the second period, but that was enough to tally the period’s only goal. At the 1:28 mark, Tyler Myers sent a superb pass through traffic to a wide-open Karlsson for the tap-in score.

The milestone goal came in Karlsson’s 10th career NHL game, all with Vancouver over the last two seasons.

Karlsson’s first goal also stood up as his first game-winner, as the Predators couldn’t solve Demko over the final two periods. Demko also got extra help from his net, as both Adam Wilsby and Justin Barron hit the goalpost on good scoring chances in the third period.

Suter secured the Canucks’ win with an empty-net, power-play goal with 19 seconds remaining in regulation.

–Field Level Media