Nashville Predators @ St Louis Blues 2-1 - 11/08

James Neal's third-period goal helped the Predators defeat the St. Louis Blues 2-1 on Saturday at Scottrade Center and snap St. Louis’ seven-game win streak. Neal scored the game-winner on a wrist shot from the top of the left circle with 6:28 remaining after taking a drop pass from Filip Forsberg. The Predators finished their six-game trip 4-2-0, winning the final two games to move ahead of the Blues into first place in the Central Division. Forsberg had a goal and an assist to extend his point streak to five games. Pekka Rinne made 28 saves for Nashville. The Nashville win snapped St. Louis' six-game winning streak in the series. The Blues had won 10 of the previous 11. The Blues got a first-period goal from Jori Lehtera. Elliott made 33 saves for St. Louis, which finished a stretch of four games in six days. Lehtera scored off a rebound of Vladimir Tarasenko's shot from the slot to give the Blues a 1-0 lead after the first period. Tarasenko cut to the middle of the ice and fired a shot through traffic. Lehtera came in off the right side and slid a backhand past Rinne's outstretched left skate with 5:30 remaining in the first. With linemates Jaden Schwartz and Tarasenko getting assists on the goal, the trio has 17 points in the past five games. The Blues have received inconsistent play from their other top players, including the line of Paul Stastny, David Backes and Alexander Steen, which was on the ice for both goals by the Predators' top line of Neal, Forsberg and Mike Ribeiro. Rinne and Elliott traded key saves late in the first. Rinne prevented a 2-0 Blues lead when he kicked out Backes' effort from in front shortly after Lehtera's goal. Elliott's best save came after Olli Jokinen streaked down the middle and had a chance in the slot, but Elliott kicked the shot out with his right pad. Forsberg, who has eight points in his past five games, scored his fifth goal in that span and tied the game 1-1 when he beat Elliott from the right circle with a wrist shot glove side 7:20 into the second period. The way the Predators were pressing, it was a matter of time before they tied the game up.

Blues Quotes

Brian Elliott: "I lost it in the bodies in front for a split second there. I definitely want it back, especially late in the third period in a tied game, but those are going to happen too."
Ken Hitchcock: "We looked slow and indecisive. We played slow. We didn't have a lot of energy. And there were stretches where they didn't, but I thought they had better energy in the third period. We had a push at the end of the second there, but I thought they had better energy in the third period. We had people uncharacteristically making puck errors and looked surprised we were getting checked. We had some dozy play at times. We had a lot of pucks that came back to us. We weren't sharp. We looked slow. We looked slow in the head, slow in the feet, and we made a lot of tired plays with the puck. We looked like a team that's played a lot of hockey. We had too many mistakes, too many tired mistakes. Quite frankly, we're sitting on one line doing everything for us right now. We're going to need a lot more from people if we expect to be good in this division."
Jori Lehtera: "I think we were not ready to play. You could see it from the guys. Everybody was kind of tired. We had heavy boots. We didn't get our game going. We didn't have speed."