Mason McTavish scored two goals and Trevor Zegras and Jansen Harkins each had a goal and an assist to lead the Anaheim Ducks to a 5-2 victory over the visiting Nashville Predators on Saturday night.
It was the second straight multi-goal game for McTavish, who also scored twice in a 5-1 win over visiting Pittsburgh on Thursday. Paval Mintyukov also scored a goal and Brett Leason had two assists for Anaheim, which improved to 5-1-1 in its last seven home contests.
Lukas Dostal took over for starter John Gibson after the first period and finished with 31 saves. Gibson stopped nine of 10 shots in the opening period before leaving with an upper-body injury.
Gustav Nyquist and Ryan O’Reilly scored goals and Filip Forsberg had two assists to extend his point streak to 10 games for Nashville, which had its season-high five-game winning streak snapped. Forsberg, who entered the game with a seven-game goal streak to tie a franchise high, failed to score on six shots. Juuse Saros made 30 saves.
Anaheim took a 1-0 lead at the 4:15 mark of the first period when Mintyukov’s sharp-angled shot from the bottom of the left circle squeaked past Soros, who kicked the puck over the goal line.
Nashville tied it on a breakaway goal by Nyquist, who flipped a backhand shot into the top far-left corner past Gibson’s blocker side.
The Ducks regained the lead with just five seconds left in the period on a backdoor tap-in by McTavish off a crossing pass Alex Killorn.
The Predators tied it at 2-2 at the 5:07 mark of the second period on O’Reilly’s backhand rebound of a shot by Adam Wilsby. But Anaheim responded with three goals in the span of 3:34 midway through the period to build a 5-2 lead. Harkins and Zegras both scored on rebounds, while McTavish roofed a one-timer from the bottom of the right circle on a power play for his fifth goal in the last three games.
Nashville pulled Soros for an extra attacker with 4:45 remaining, but Dostal stopped all three shots he faced before the final buzzer.
–Field Level Media
