NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Yakov Trenin didn’t need his stick to score his first goal and that’s just fine with him.
Nick Bonino, Dante Fabbro and Rocco Grimaldi each had a goal and an assist, and the Nashville Predators beat the New Jersey Devils 6-4 on Saturday night.
Trenin scored his first NHL goal, and Daniel Carr and Filip Forsberg also scored for Nashville, which snapped a two-game losing skid. Mattias Ekholm had two assists and Pekka Rinne stopped 29 shots.
Playing in his second career NHL game, Trenin gave the Predators the lead for good as he notched his first goal with his skate.
Grimaldi took advantage of a New Jersey turnover and fired a slap shot toward the Devils' net from the right circle. The puck glanced off of Trenin’s skate and squeezed between Domingue's pads at 5:52 of the second to put Nashville up 3-2.
“If I had time I would screen the goalie or get a tip, but I got a lucky bounce, nice,” Trenin said. “(It was) my second game, I felt more confident.”
Jesper Bratt, Travis Zajac, Kyle Palmieri and Taylor Hall scored for the Devils, losers of five straight. Louis Domingue finished with 31 saves.
“The response was good, it’s probably the biggest positive out of this game,” New Jersey interim coach Alain Nasreddine said. “(Down) 2-0 like this and we managed to come back, we’ll take that. That was good. They went up again two goals and we battled back to make it a one-goal game. There was no quit.”
Forsberg got his 11th at 7:24 of the middle period to make it 4-2, before Palmieri pulled the Devils back within one with his 11th less than six minutes later.
Bonino restored the Predators' two-goal lead at 5:47 of the third with his 11th.
Hall got the Devils within one again with just under nine minutes remaining, but Grimaldi sealed the win 95 seconds later on a breakaway after tipping the puck past by Devils defenseman P.K. Subban.
“I haven’t had a breakaway from that far out in a long time,” Grimaldi said. “It was a one-goal game, and I needed to come through to give us some breathing room and thankfully it went in.”
The teams started the scoring early, combining for four goals before the game was even four minutes old.
The well-rested Predators jumped out to a 2-0 lead quickly on goals by Carr and Fabbro. The Predators hadn’t played since Tuesday while the Devils fell at home to Chicago in a shootout Friday night.
Carr’s came just 46 seconds in as he redirected Dan Hamhuis' shot past Domingue. It was the first of the season for Carr, who has split time between Nashville and Milwaukee of the AHL since signing with the Predators on July 1.
Fabbro doubled the lead at 2:13 with his third.
“The more you get comfortable, the more confidence that you get,” Nashville coach Peter Laviolette said of Fabbro. “As his confidence grows and he starts to develop and play more games in the National Hockey League, I think the offensive part of his game will grow as well.”
The Devils answered back with two quick ones of their own, first by Bratt at 2:45 and then Zajac 1:14 later.
“I know we’ll fix it, we’ll continue to improve and try and get better,” Zajac said. “We turned some pucks over. There are plays to be made that are the right plays and we sometimes want to make the play through guys still. You don’t want to beat yourself and I think we can get better in some of those areas.”
The Predators played a video tribute for Subban during a first period timeout. Subban, who played the previous three seasons in Nashville, received a standing ovation from the Bridgestone Arena crowd and he stood and waved to the fans.
NOTES: Trenin, called up from Milwaukee of the AHL on Friday, is the 184th player in Predators franchise history to score a goal. ... Predators C Mikael Granlund missed his second consecutive game due to a lower-body injury. ... Bratt has two goals in his last three games. ... Domingue is 3-2-1 in his career against Nashville. ... Devils D Sami Vatanen had two assists.
UP NEXT
Devils: Visit Dallas on Tuesday night.
Predators: Host San Jose on Tuesday night.
