Elias Pettersson scored his 30th goal of the season and had the game-winner in the shootout to lead the Vancouver Canucks to a 4-3 victory over the visiting Nashville Predators on Monday night.
Leading off the third round, Pettersson skated down the slot and snapped a shot through the pads of Juuse Saros for the only score of the shootout.
Vasily Podkolzin and Dakota Joshua also scored goals for Vancouver which won its second straight and for the fourth time in the last six games.
Arturs Silovs, making his fifth career NHL start after getting called up on an emergency basis from Abbotsford of the American Hockey League on Monday when backup goalie Collin Delia became ill, made 29 saves and wasn’t beaten in the shootout to earn his third career win.
Luke Evangelista scored two goals and Colton Sissons also scored for Nashville. Jeremy Lauzon added a pair of assists and Saros finished with 26 saves.
Pettersson gave Vancouver a 1-0 lead at the 4:28 mark of the first period, ripping a wrist shot from the left faceoff dot inside the far corner. It was his 300th career point, the first player from the 2017 draft to accomplish that feat.
The Predators tied it just 27 seconds later when Sissons backhanded in a rebound of a Cole Smith shot into a wide-open right side of the net for his 11th goal.
Podkolzin put the Canucks back in front, 2-1, midway through the period when he deflected a shot from the right point by Kyle Burroughs past the blocker of Saros and into the top left corner of the net for his third goal of the season.
Joshua increased Vancouver’s lead to two goals early in the third period when he took a Nils Aman pass coming down the slot and fired a wrist shot over Saros’ left pad for his ninth goal of the season.
Evangelista, playing in just his fourth NHL game, cut the lead to 3-2 midway through the period with his first career goal, sliding in a rebound around Silovs.
Evangelista then tied it with 3:05 remaining when he deflected a Tyson Barrie shot over the left shoulder of Silovs.
Pettersson nearly won it early in overtime but his backhand try from the low slot caromed off the crossbar.
–Field Level Media