Johnston gets 3 points, Ducks ease past Predators

NASHVILLE – Ross Johnston had a goal and two assists for the Anaheim Ducks in a 5-2 win against the Nashville Predators at Bridgestone Arena on Tuesday.

Cutter Gauthier had a goal and an assist, and Jacob Trouba had two assists for the Ducks (3-2-1), who had lost their past two. Lukas Dostal made 26 saves.

“Any time you get points, three points, I don’t know if we should search for that every night,” Johnston said. “I mean I’ll obviously try, but it’s a hard task. I’ll soak it in.”

Tyson Jost and Filip Forsberg scored for the Predators (2-3-2), who are 0-3-1 in their past four games. Juuse Saros made 28 saves.

“It wasn’t good,” Predators captain Roman Josi said. “We kind of gave them all their goals. I felt like it was really easy goals for them. Just mistakes we made, losing too many battles. It’s just kind of not the game you want to play. I feel like we played to their strength, which is like a wide-open game. They’re very skilled and fast, and that’s not how we’re successful. That’s why we lost tonight.”

Johnston gave the Ducks a 1-0 lead at 8:52 of the first period. Johnston collected the rebound from a Radko Gudas point shot and sent it on net, where it deflected off the stick of Predators defenseman Brady Skjei before lifting past Saros.

“I thought [Ducks forwards Sam Colangelo and Ryan Poehling] did an awesome job tonight,” Johnston said. “We were hounding pucks, and I thought we were all over it in the first period and we started to get rewarded. It’s a little bit of everything, and you see the result at the end.”

Jost evened it 1-1 at 14:29 on a redirection of a pass from Spencer Stastney.

“I think we’ve got some young [defensemen], and they had a hard night,” Predators coach Andrew Brunette said. “They’re a fast team. They closed on us fast, and we had a lot of trouble kind of getting our engine going. I think if you watch our games and we’re really going, our defense is moving the puck and it’s clean and it’s quick and it’s fast. It allows us to get in the other zone.

“Today I just thought we were sloppy. We were slow. We lost a lot of puck battles. We had no urgency going back for pucks. So I think we had a hard night kind of getting the engine started consistently enough.”

Leo Carlsson gave the Ducks a 2-1 lead at 4:23 of the second period when he scored in tight on a rebound from a Trouba slap shot.

Forsberg tied the game 2-2 at 6:39, deflecting in a shot from Josi.

Gauthier put Anaheim in front 3-2 at 15:07 on a wrist shot from the right circle on a 2-on-1 rush.

“That was a big play on that goal,” Ducks coach Joel Quenneville said. “The third goal, I thought, was a big goal for us. Scoring late and then they had a push there in the last couple minutes of the second. A couple of saves and a couple of fortunate bounces, but I liked the third period when we had a lead. Didn’t get tested all year. We didn’t know how we were going to respond to the lead. I thought we were pretty sound after that.”

Beckett Sennecke pushed it to 4-2 at 16:59 when he one-timed a cross-ice pass from Mason McTavish.

Troy Terry scored at 11:40 of the third period, tipping in a backdoor feed from Poehling after Johnston forced a turnover for the 5-2 final.

“Even taking [Johnston] out of the lineup, he didn’t deserve to come out of the lineup,” Quenneville said of Johnston's scratch against the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday. “He’s played four really good games prior to the last game. He continues on to have a real good start to the season. He had a good camp. I don’t know if he’s going to play all 81 games the rest of the way when we sat him out one game, but I think he had a good response knowing that ‘Hey, you might not play them all, but keep yourself ready to go.’ Tonight was a good indication that he’s ready.”

NOTES: The Ducks played the second game of a five-game road trip. … Predators forward Jonathan Marchessault missed a second straight game because of a lower-body injury. Nashville played the first game of a five-game homestand. ... Terry recorded the 290th point of his NHL career, passing Bobby Ryan for ninth on the Ducks' all-time list.