Steven Stamkos scored twice and also had an assist and Filip Forsberg added a goal and an assist as the Nashville Predators jumped out to a four-goal lead and then held on for a milestone 5-3 victory over the visiting Vegas Golden Knights on Tuesday night.
Justin Barron and Ryan O’Reilly also scored for Nashville, which earned the 1,000th win in franchise history (1,000-770-60-190). Justus Annunen made 19 saves for the Predators, who snapped a two-game losing streak.
Vegas’ Pavel Dorofeyev scored his first career hat trick, the fourth multi-goal game of his career and third of the season. Tomas Hertl and Victor Olofsson each had two assists for the Golden Knights, who lost for the third time in four games.
Ilya Samsonov finished with 18 saves for the Golden Knights, who lost in regulation for just the fourth time (23-4-2) in 29 games against Western Conference opponents.
Nashville held the Golden Knights to just one shot on goal in the first period while building a 2-0 lead. A wide-open Stamkos slid a rebound under Samsonov’s right pad from the left side of the net at 9:44, and Forsberg grabbed the puck off the faceoff in the right circle and slid in a wrist shot five-hole at 12:06.
Vegas managed just a long-range wrist shot by Shea Theodore at the 17:25 mark.
The Predators extended the lead to 4-0 early in the second period on goals by Barron, who blasted a one-timer from the top of the right circle off a drop pass by Roman Josi at 5:29, and a sharp-angled goal by Stamkos from above the left goal line.
Vegas got back into the game later in the second period on two goals by Dorofeyev. Both scores came on one-timers from the lower right circle, at 9:12 and 14:02, the second one on a power play off a pass from Hertl.
Dorofeyev then completed his natural hat trick with 4:40 remaining in the third period when he drilled a drop pass from Olofsson from the high slot past Annunen’s blocker side.
Vegas pulled Samsonov for an extra attacker with 1:32 to go, and O’Reilly sealed it with an empty-netter with 1.5 seconds remaining, just the second shot of the period for the Predators.
–Field Level Media
