NHL - Central - Monday, December 28, 2015

NY Rangers @ Nashville Predators 3-5
James Neal scored two goals in the Predators' 5-3 win against the Rangers at Bridgestone Arena. Filip Forsberg extended his point streak to five games when he scored a power-play goal to give the Predators a 1-0 lead with 1:04 left in the first period. Roman Josi made a cross-ice feed through traffic that Forsberg one-timed past Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist for his 10th goal. The Predators have won three of their past four games. Jesper Fast tied it 1-1 at 6:59 of the second period when he tipped Dan Girardi's point shot past Pekka Rinne for his sixth goal. Girardi returned to the lineup after missing five games because of swelling in his knee. Neal gave the Predators a 2-1 lead at 13:48 of the second when his wrist shot from the slot beat Lundqvist. He was trailing the play, and Mike Ribeiro hit him with a pass on the rush. Ribeiro had three assists to extend his point streak to four games. Forsberg scored an apparent goal at 5:18 of the third period, but Rangers coach Alain Vigneault challenged, and it was disallowed after video review determined Craig Smith interfered with Lundqvist. Nashville responded with three goals in the next 5:55. Smith put the Predators up 3-1 at 7:34 when he redirected Josi's shot from the point past Lundqvist for his eighth goal. The goal was upheld after video review determined Smith's stick was not above the crossbar when it contacted the puck. Ryan Ellis gave Nashville a 4-1 lead at 9:52 with a power-play goal. Ellis one-timed Seth Jones' pass from the right point past Lundqvist for his fourth of the season. Neal scored his second of the game and 15th of the season at 11:13 to give the Predators a 5-1 lead. Calle Jarnkrok passed the puck to Neal, who was able to direct the puck past Lundqvist. Lundqvist, who made 30 saves on 35 shots, was replaced by Antti Raanta at that point; Raanta did not face a shot in 5:19. The Rangers have lost four of their past five games. Rick Nash's 11th goal made it 5-2 at 13:20. Rinne attempted to clear the puck, but Nash intercepted it and scored into an open net. J.T. Miller scored to make it 5-3 with 3:58 remaining on a wrist shot from the slot for his eighth goal. Mike Fisher returned after missing 11 games with a lower-body injury. Kevin Klein returned after missing 11 games with an oblique injury.

Filip Forsberg: "I think we did a really good job with being in front of the net. Obviously, a lot of the goals were with traffic involved. If he can't see the puck, he can't stop it, so obviously I think that's the biggest thing."
James Neal: "It's 60 minutes. Something we've put emphasis on is having better second periods. Tonight, we slipped a little bit, but I think we played a good, solid game. You have to be on your toes when you're playing against them. They're going to come at you with skill all the time, so great win. That's a big difference. It was still a 2-1 game. That would have been a huge goal from [Forsberg]. I didn't really see that contact, but it got ruled over. We kept on the gas and finished it off with a huge win. That's a great team over there, and we played well after that and gave ourselves a big two points."
Mike Ribeiro: "I think when we're a team that brings emotion to the game, we're a different team. We play with more energy to our game, and we're just faster at getting pucks, we're forechecking, we're creating turnovers. It's just hard to bring that every night, so you have to find a way to motivate yourself."
Mike Fisher: "It was a good [third period]. We didn't want to keep them hanging around too long. They did make a push, obviously, at the end, but our third was in general pretty good. Overall, I thought we played hard."
Detroit Red Wings @ Minnesota Wild 1-3
Devan Dubnyk overcame a minor injury to make 28 saves in a 3-1 win against the Red Wings at Xcel Energy Center. Dubnyk sustained his injury during practice on Sunday when a puck hit him between his blocker and arm pads attached to his shoulder armor, opening a deep cut that required six stitches to close. As of Monday morning, Dubnyk's injury was expected to limit him to backup duties, at most. But an upper-body injury to announced starter Darcy Kuemper forced Dubnyk into action and he responded, making 11 saves in the first period and falling fewer than two minutes shy of his fifth shutout this season. Charlie Coyle scored the game's first goal and Mikko Koivu scored twice late in the game for Minnesota, which finished a four-game homestand 2-2-0.
Pavel Datsyuk scored his fourth goal and the Red Wings got 32 saves from goaltender Petr Mrazek, who was outstanding despite the loss. Detroit got 29 shots on goal, but few were of the grade-A variety; Dubnyk's glove save on Tomas Jurco that shut down a 2-on-1 break might have been his best save of the game. Yeo was pleased with the Wild's overall game after a 3-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday. Minnesota blocked 23 shots, led by Jared Spurgeon's six. The Red Wings finished with five blocks total. Mrazek made several big saves, especially during a two-minute stretch during the middle of the third period. The first was on Jason Zucker, who tried to use a backhanded shot while on a breakaway. Mrazek flipped it aside with a glove save. On the next shift, Zach Parise's shot from the low slot was swept away on a pad save. Nino Niederreiter was denied on a point-blank chance moments later. Niederreiter was whistled for a cross-checking penalty shortly thereafter, but Detroit was unable to capitalize. Coyle went around Brendan Smith at the right circle and chipped the puck over Mrazek's glove for his ninth goal at 11:42 of the first period to make it 1-0. Nobody scored again until Koivu made it 2-0 at 17:42 of the third, following a paddle save by Mrazek on Matt Dumba by putting the rebound into an open net. Datsyuk scored from the slot 21 seconds later but Koivu corralled the puck and scored from the left circle at 18:56 for his 10th goal with Mrazek on the bench.

Devan Dubnyk: "When you've played as many games as [Wild coach Mike Yeo] has allowed me to play over the last little while, it's easy to just get into game-day routine. Nothing really changes. It's not a big deal. [The wrist] didn't feel real good this morning, but it felt a lot better tonight than I expected it to."
Mike Yeo: "We knew this homestand was going to be a test. We can't classify it as a good one, but certainly a win tonight doesn't make it so bad. Win, lose, whatever, I just wanted to see us play the right way. I saw a lot more pace to our game tonight and a huge part of that is the execution. That's been our concentration over the last couple of days."