Forsberg scores hat trick for Predators in win against Blues

ST. LOUIS -- Filip Forsberg scored a hat trick for the Nashville Predators, who defeated the St. Louis Blues for the second time in five days with a 5-2 win at Enterprise Center on Monday.

It was Forsberg's first hat trick of the season and 11th in the NHL. He has eight points (five goals, three assists) in a five-game streak.

“'Fill' was doing Fill things tonight,” Nashville coach Andrew Brunette said. “He got us off to a great start. We wanted to come out and set the tone and dictate the pace. He was a big reason why.”

Michael Bunting had a goal, and Roman Josi and Ryan O'Reilly each had two assists for the Predators (13-15-4), who are 7-3-0 in their past 10 games, including a 7-2 win against St. Louis in Nashville last Thursday. Juuse Saros made 20 saves.

“I thought it was a pretty solid game for us,” Forsberg said. “We started off well, obviously getting that early goal. That gave us a little boost.”

Dalibor Dvorsky scored twice for the Blues (12-15-7), who have lost three of four. Joel Hofer made 21 saves.

“I think our first period wasn’t too good and we’ve just got to find a way to get back into games,” Dvorsky said. “That’s the thing we need to work on, I think.”

Forsberg put the Predators up 1-0 just 27 seconds into the first period. O'Reilly fed a backhand pass from below the goal line to Forsberg low in front, who beat Hofer with a wrist shot short side.

“On the first one, it was a great play by O’Reilly that found me in the slot and I got it off quick,” Forsberg said.

Dvorsky tied it 1-1 at 10:06. Hugh McGing stripped Predators defenseman Nick Blankenburg of the puck in the offensive zone and fed a pass to Dvorsky in the high slot, where he beat Saros blocker side with a wrist shot.

“The positive is Dalibor Dvorsky,” St. Louis coach Jim Montgomery said. “It was nice seeing him moving his feet, beat a goalie clean with his first goal.”

Bunting tucked the puck through Hofer's pads on a wraparound at 1:23 of the second period to put the Predators up 2-1.

After Dvorsky took a delay of game penalty, Forsberg pushed the lead to 3-1 with his second at 5:31 with a long-distance wrist shot under Hofer's right arm.

“On the power play, we were working them for almost two minutes,” Forsberg said. “It was time to score. We kept shooting and shooting there. Their goalie kept making saves.”

Reid Schaefer made it 4-1 at 18:45 when he sent a spinning wrist shot from the right point just over the left pad of Hofer.

Dvorsky cut the deficit to 4-2 with a power-play goal at 8:29 of the third period. He finished off a tic-tac-toe passing play between Pavel Buchnevich and Jake Neighbours with a backdoor tap-in off the right post. The goal gave Dvorsky his first multigoal and multipoint game of his NHL career.

“Obviously it feels good to score, but first of all, I’m disappointed that we lost,” Dvorsky said. “That’s the most important is the team win and it’s always nice, but a win would be better.”

Montgomery said: “The second goal was really good power-play movement. He’s on the backdoor putting the puck in on the forehand, which isn’t an easy task. Great pass by Jake Neighbours. All five guys touched the puck on the power play. That was really good.”

Forsberg completed the hat trick with an empty-net goal at 16:09 for the 5-2 final.

“I like the way we started. It’s one of those games where we lost the momentum a little bit here and there but we hung in there,” Brunette said. “In the third period, I thought we defended a little bit too much.

“I thought our first period and halfway through the second period was really good.”

NOTES: Forsberg tied Markus Naslund (11) for the second-most hat tricks by a Swedish player. Kent Nilsson tops the list with 14. ... Josi passed Borje Salming (176) for the fifth-most multipoint games by a defenseman born outside of North America in NHL history. The list is topped by Nicklas Lidstrom (264), Erik Karlsson (214), Victor Hedman (188) and Sergei Gonchar (178). ... Blues forward Dylan Holloway was placed on injured reserve and will miss six weeks after injuring his right ankle at practice on Sunday. ... Forward Alexey Toropchenko had one shot in 15:27 of ice time in his return for St. Louis after missing seven games with scalding burns to his legs in a home accident.