Forsberg Leads Bounce-Back Effort as Preds Beat Lightning

Don't look now, but Filip Forsberg is heating up.
Forsberg scored twice and added an assist as the Nashville Predators defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning by a 4-1 final on Sunday night at Amalie Arena. The victory bumps the Preds to 113 points on the season, a three-point lead over the entire League, and gives them their 51st victory of the campaign, tied for their highest single-season total in club history.
Forsberg now has six points in his last two games, and with a pair of goals on Sunday, including one that will be shown over and over in the coming days, that's good news for a club gearing up for another postseason run.

"When I watch him play, you watch that [second] goal, he kicked it into another gear and that's when he's on his game," Predators Head Coach Peter Laviolette said of Forsberg. "When he's playing fast, when he's dangerous with his shot, when he plays like a power forward, he becomes really hard to defend."
And it wasn't just Forsberg who caused problems for the Lightning, as the Preds rebounded from a lackluster effort less than 24 hours earlier to beat one of the League's best.
"The guys played smart, and that's all on them," Laviolette said. "They had a meeting, they weren't happy with it and they straightened it out. They played a smart, hard game, especially with the turnaround. Twenty hours later, we're back in our gear, so it was a good win."
It was Ryan Johansen, who gave the Predators a 1-0 lead in the first period, when he kept and sniped on a 2-on-1 for his 14th goal of the season. Forsberg made it 2-0 in the second stanza when a fortunate bounce gave him goal No. 22 of the campaign, but before the period was out, Ondrej Palat beat Juuse Saros to get the Lightning on the board.

Forsberg's second of the evening was one for the highlight reel as the winger took it himself, skated around Bolts defenseman Dan Girardi and beat Andrei Vasilevskiy along the ice to give his club a 3-1 lead. Craig Smith scored the fourth Nashville goal on a partial break, and that was more than enough get the Preds back on the right side of the ledger, thanks in part to No. 9.
"Oh my goodness, unbelievable," Johansen said of Forsberg's second strike. "I couldn't do that if I tried a thousand times. I was in shock on the ice. I don't know if anybody caught my face, but I was just like, 'Wow.' When he's going, he's a big time threat out there and a great time for him to start ramping his game up."

The Predators will now enjoy a well-deserved day off on Monday before skating in the final three games of their season, a chance to clinch the division, the conference and the League.
Nashville's magic number to clinch the Central Division is two points, meaning if the Winnipeg Jets fall in regulation to the Ottawa Senators on Monday night, the Predators will claim their first Central crown in franchise history.
"We can put [Saturday's game] right behind us now and just move forward," Johansen said. "We'll take a day here tomorrow, get some sunshine and a little vitamin D and get back to work."

Best of the Best:
It wasn't difficult for the Predators to get up for this one.
As they headed into Tampa Bay on Sunday evening, just one night removed from a 7-4 defeat at the hands of the club at the bottom of the NHL standings, Nashville skated their way to a 4-1 victory over the third-place club in the League.
"This is a big win," Forsberg said. "It was a good test for us going up against one of the top teams, and I think we played really good hockey. This is what it's going to be in the playoffs, just really tough hockey, especially here on the road, and I think we did a good job with that."

With the postseason looming, a chance to go head to head against a club that could find themselves coming out of the Eastern Conference at the end of May provided quite a gauge for a team hoping to do the same in the West.
And the Preds rose to the challenge, inching closer to their first division title in the process.
"This game was definitely circled on our calendar for a long time," Johansen said. "We knew this was a great test for us and we're near the playoffs here and how we match up against these guys. Tonight, we got the better of it. It was a fun game, fun game to be a part of and a great performance by our team."

Notes:
Forward Viktor Arvidsson did not dress for Sunday's game and is day-to-day with a lower-body injury.
Nashville's road trip in the Sunshine State continues on Tuesday when they take on the Florida Panthers (at 6:30 p.m. CT) before heading north to Washington for a date with the Capitals on Thursday (now televised on NBCSN).