Grimaldi's four goals propel Predators past Red Wings

NASHVILLE --Rocco Grimaldi scored four goals for the Nashville Predators in a 7-1 win against the Detroit Red Wings at Bridgestone Arena on Thursday.

Grimaldi entered the game with three goals this season and hadn't had a point since Feb. 13 (15 games).
"I was more in shock," Grimaldi said. "When you don't score for a really long time, you almost forget what it feels like. And then after the third one, the three of us, me and [Nick Cousins and Erik Haula] were just in the corner laughing. I don't know how fast it was. It was just under 10 minutes I think. Fifteen games with nothing and then three goals in 10 minutes. We just were laughing like 'What is going on?' I feel like my legs were shaking."
Roman Josi had two assists, and Juuse Saros made 20 saves for the Predators (16-17-1), who have won three straight and five of their past six.
Bobby Ryan scored for the Red Wings (10-20-4), who have been outscored 12-1 in their past three games. Thomas Greiss allowed three goals on seven shots before being replaced in the first period by Calvin Pickard, who made 19 saves.
"It's obviously totally unacceptable," Detroit coach Jeff Blashill said. "You can't have nights where you give away easy goals like we gave away tonight."
Grimaldi gave Nashville a 1-0 lead at 5:34 of the first period on a give-and-go with Haula.

Eeli Tolvanen made it 2-0 at 7:23 with a wrist shot from the left circle on the power play.
Grimaldi scored 16 seconds later to extend the lead to 3-0, shooting from a sharp angle along the goal line after he forced a turnover by Greiss. He then completed the hat trick to make it 4-0 at 8:08 when he shot into an open net off a centering pass from Haula.
The hat trick in 2:34 was the fastest in Predators history.
"I think for me personally, I can be pretty pessimistic at times and wonder if the puck is ever going to go in again," Grimaldi said. "But I have a lot of good people surrounding me in my life, my family and my friends, that were just through this last month or two trying to keep me on track. As long as my effort is there, as long as I'm doing the best that I can to help our team win, it doesn't really matter if I'm scoring. As long as the team is winning games, that's what my focus needs to be on all the time."

Ryan scored to make it 4-1 at 19:05 of the first with a wrist shot on the power play. It was Detroit's first goal in 150:00.
"I'd say we were out of sync," Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin said. "We didn't execute. We didn't have a good start. We were right away behind the eight ball and gave up three, so it wasn't fair to [Greiss]. Some of those breakaways, not much he could do. It just wasn't fair to him and we didn't have the start. It went downhill from there."
Mikael Granlund pushed the lead to 5-1 at 12:19 of the second period when his pass attempt deflected off the stick of Detroit defenseman Troy Stecher, and Mathieu Olivier made it 6-1 at 4:29 of the third period.
Grimaldi scored his fourth goal of the game at 17:29 on a breakaway for the 7-1 final.
"I was really, really happy for [Rocco]," Olivier said. "He's been telling me the last few games that he's due for one. I saw him get the first one early, and then he was just gone for the rest of the game and scored three more. It's awesome to see. I think everybody was really happy for him."
NOTES: Red Wings defenseman Marc Staal left in the second period because of an upper-body injury. … Grimaldi tied Eric Nystrom for the most goals in a game in Nashville history. Nystrom scored four goals in a 5-4 shootout loss to the Calgary Flames on Jan. 24, 2014.