MONTREAL (AP) — Colton Sissons scored twice, Juuse Saros made 36 saves and the Nashville Predators held off the Montreal Canadiens 2-1 on Sunday night.
“We’re starting to understand how to win these kind of games when maybe you lose a little momentum,” Predators coach Andrew Brunette. “Early in the year we probably would have caved a little bit, so I think we’ve been able to grow as a team here."
Captain Roman Josi assisted on both goals to help Nashville rebound from a 4-0 loss at Toronto on Saturday night.
“We needed a good response,” Sissons said. “I thought we had some juice at the drop of the puck tonight and played a much better game.”
The Predators have won 10 of 13 to improve to 15-13-0.
“Going on the third period, I really felt we understood that maybe we didn’t have the energy, we needed to play a certain way, but we managed the game extremely well,” Brunette said.
Jake Evans scored for Montreal and Jake Allen made 30 saves. Coming off a 3-2 shootout victory in Buffalo on Saturday night, the Canadiens were 0 of 5 on the power play, while Nashville went 1 for 2.
“I’ve really liked our starts lately, but for some reason we have a tough time sustaining that start,” Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said. “I felt tonight, we lost momentum because our PP didn’t execute.”
Sissons opened the scoring on a power play with 8:19 left in the first period, deflecting a shot from Filip Forsberg. Sissons struck again at 7:03 of the second, with Dante Fabbro’s point shot bouncing off Allen’s pad to the unmarked Sissons at the side of the net for his ninth of the season.
Evans made it 2-1 with 35 seconds left in the second, beating Saros with a backhander.
Canadiens defenseman David Savard returned after missing 22 games because of a broken hand. Savard rejoined Mike Matheson on the Canadiens’ top pairing and replaced Gustav Lindstrom in the lineup. Montreal sent defenseman Mattias Norlinder to Laval of the American Hockey League to open up a roster spot.
UP NEXT
Predators: Host Philadelphia on Tuesday night.
Canadiens: Host Pittsburgh on Wednesday night.
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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl
The Associated Press