NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Ryan Johansen's first career hat trick led the Nashville Predators to a 6-2 victory over the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday night.
Roman Josi and Philip Tomasino had a goal and two assists, Matt Duchene had a goal and an assist and Juuse Saros made 47 saves for Nashville, winners of three of four as they try to keep pace in the tight Western Conference playoff race. Filip Forsberg had three assists and Mattias Ekholm added two.
Mats Zuccarello and Kirill Kaprizov each had a goal and an assist for Minnesota. Marc-Andre Fleury made 27 saves. The Wild were 9-0-1 in its previous 10 games.
Josi scored the game’s first goal at 5:10 of the opening period. With the Predators on a power play, he snapped a wrist shot from just above the left faceoff dot that beat Fleury high to the far side.
Zuccarello made it 1-1 with about six and a half minutes left in the first, but Johansen answered 25 seconds later with another power-play goal for the Predators.
Johansen struck again with less than a minute left, his second on the power play, this time redirecting Josi’s slap pass from the center of the blue line past Fleury.
Tomasino gave Nashville a 4-1 lead at 6:06 of the second.
Just seconds after another Wild power play expired, Josi carried the puck into the right circle and he slipped a backhand pass to Tomasino in the slot, where the rookie beat Fleury with a one-timer low to the stick side.
Kaprizov scored his 40th of the season at 17:51 of the second with the Wild on a two-man advantage.
Duchene scored at 13:28 of the third and Johansen scored his third into an empty net with 6.1 seconds remaining.
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