Urho Vaakanainen’s third period goal leads Ducks over slumping Predators 3-2

By JIM DIAMOND
Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Urho Vaakanainen scored his first career goal with 3:51 remaining to lead the Anaheim Ducks to a 3-2 victory over the Nashville Predators on Tuesday night.

Radko Gudas had a Gordie Howe hat trick with a goal, assist and a fighting major and Cam Fowler also scored for Anaheim, which has won five consecutive road games, with four of those being come-from-behind victories. John Gibson made 29 saves.

Anaheim became the first team in NHL history to record six third-period comeback wins through 15 games in a season.

“We don’t want to be down goals and then have to chase games, but we seem to be confident when we are down,” Anaheim coach Greg Cronin said. “I think the attitude and the mentality is kind of a winners’ mentality.”

Filip Forsberg and Roman Josi scored and Juuse Saros made 17 saves for the reeling Predators, losers of four straight and six of their last seven.

“It’s frustrating because we’re obviously falling behind,” Josi said. “We need some wins quick here. You can’t get too far behind.”

With time winding down in the third, Vaakanainen beat his fellow Finn Saros with a slap shot from the left point. He had not scored a goal in his first 78 career NHL games. He also assisted on Gudas’ game-tying goal.

“How long did it take, 80 games? Of course I’ve been thinking about it,” Vaakanainen said. “I saw there was a little bit of space so I tried to go hard and high. I tried to shoot to score.”

Forsberg scored the game’s first goal at 1:03 of the second period and Josi doubled the Nashville lead at 14:28 of the second with a slap shot from the top of the left circle on a power play.

Prior to Josi’s tally, the Ducks had killed off 20 straight power plays.

Fowler beat Saros with a wrist shot from the right circle at 17:28 of the second. Mason McTavish assisted on Fowler’s goal, extending his point streak to three games and he has reached the scoresheet in ten of his last 11.

“Pretty much every goal was a lack of coverage, mistakes in our end,” Predators coach Andrew Brunette said. “I thought besides that, I thought we were pretty airtight.”

Gudas tied it at 4:11 of the third from the slot, scoring his third of the season. He scored two goals last season in 72 games played.

He fought Nashville’s Jeremy Lauzon midway through the second.

“Good night for me, I’ll take it,” Gudas said.

UP NEXT

Ducks: Visit Colorado on Wednesday.

Predators: Host Chicago on Saturday.

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