Rangers end five-game losing streak, defeat Predators

NEW YORK -- Henrik Lundqvist made 23 saves, and Kevin Hayes and Jimmy Vesey each had a goal and an assist to lift the New York Rangers to a 4-2 win against the Nashville Predators at Madison Square Garden on Saturday.
Lundqvist won his 407th NHL game, tying Hall of Famer Glenn Hall for ninth place on the all-time list.

"It was a good feeling to finally get a win here," Lundqvist said.
WATCH: [All Predators vs. Rangers highlights]
It ended a five-game losing streak for the Rangers (2-5-2), who have a point in three straight games (1-0-2).
New York hadn't won since defeating the Montreal Canadiens 2-0 on Oct. 8. It lost 5-4 in overtime against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday and a 4-3 in a shootout against the New York Islanders on Thursday.
Jesper Fast and Chris Kreider each scored his first goal of the season. Vesey's points were his first of the season.

"This was coming," Lundqvist said. "We had a couple games now where we've been close. It was just a matter of time. Finally, we get the two points. We'll take a deep breath and we'll go after another two points Monday [against the San Jose Sharks]."
The Predators (4-3-1) had a two-game winning streak and a five-game point streak (4-0-1) end. Mattias Ekholm and Filip Forsberg scored, and Forsberg had an assist. Juuse Saros made 11 saves in his second start of the season.
"We created enough chances to win this game by a couple goals," Forsberg said. "You've got to give credit to Lundqvist, but at the same time we had chances that we've got to bury."
The Rangers had six shots on goal in the second and third periods. One was Vesey's 129-footer for an empty-net goal at 19:21.
"It's big," Hayes said of the win. "Hopefully, it's a springboard into a lot of other things."
The Rangers bucked their trend of giving up a goal early in a game (five times in the first 5:29 of the first period this season) and built a 2-0 lead. Fast scored at 14:58 of the first period and Kreider scored on the power play at 19:34.
The Predators made it 2-1 on Ekholm's first goal of the season at 1:44 of the second.

Hayes made it 3-1 at 12:46 of the second by using his speed on the right side after taking a pass from Vesey to score his second goal in as many games.
The Predators got to within 3-2 on Forsberg's sixth goal of the season at 15:30 of the second period.
Nashville had a power play at 11:14 of the third period, but Lundqvist made three saves. He made three more before Vesey scored.
"We didn't get much, but we had some guys who made some good plays and it was the difference," Lundqvist said. "It was that one extra play that made the difference."

Goal of the game

Kreider scored his first of the season by getting open in front of the net on the power play and getting a pass from J.T. Miller. Rangers center David Desharnais created the opportunity by knocking the puck away from Predators defenseman Alexei Emelin.

Save of the game

At 13:11 of the third period, with three seconds remaining on a Predators power play and the Rangers penalty killers tired, Lundqvist read the seam pass from Roman Josi to Ryan Johansen, cut across his crease and made a left-pad save on Johansen's one-timer from the left circle.

Highlight of the game

Hayes took Vesey's cross-ice bank pass off the right-wing wall and picked up his speed. He cut down the wall, into the circle, went wide and beat Predators defenseman Matt Irwin before flipping the puck over Saros' left shoulder and into the net.

They said it

"We didn't feel as tense as it seems. We feel good about our game. In the last two or three games, I think we've done a lot of good things. We hadn't come out on the right side but it's not as tense as it may seem on the outside. We feel good about our game. We're happy with finally getting a win here." -- Rangers forward J.T. Miller
"We're in the collecting points business, so today we collected zero. But [our] game has gotten better every game, and tonight was no different. We just didn't get the results." -- Predators coach Peter Laviolette

Need to know

Lundqvist is 407-252-78. Hall had 163 ties and 326 losses. ... Predators defenseman Yannick Weber played 10:23 after missing three games with an upper-body injury.

What's next

Predators: Host the Calgary Flames on Tuesday (8 p.m. ET; FS-TN, SNF, NHL.TV)
Rangers: Host the San Jose Sharks on Monday (7 p.m. ET; NHLN, SN, MSG, NBCSCA, NHL.TV)