Laviolette Collects 600th Win as Preds Topple Avalanche

The milestones came a mile up on Monday afternoon.
Predators Head Coach Peter Laviolette earned his 600th career win as Nashville defeated the Colorado Avalanche by a 4-1 final at the Pepsi Center. The victory snaps Nashville's two-game skid and gives the Preds bench boss a monumental achievement in the process.
Nashville centerman Nick Bonino potted his 100th career goal on the day as well as the Preds got goals from four different participants to collect their 29th victory of the season.

"It's huge for us," Bonino said of the win. "We wanted to respond, we had some meetings and figured it out, and we just have to keep going into the right direction."
"It was just a really good team effort," Laviolette said. "Pekka [Rinne] was unbelievable in the first period, and then as the game moved on, we got some traction and scored the some goals… There's lots of things that I liked about it, and the answer from the players from the last game was terrific."
After Rinne made 13 saves in the game's opening period to keep things scoreless after 20 minutes, the Predators went to work.
First, moments after he was called for a stick foul that gave the Avalanche an unsuccessful penalty shot, Bonino beat Avalanche goaltender Semyon Varlamov through the five-hole for a 1-0 advantage. Then, just over 90 seconds later, Viktor Arvidsson turned on the jets and converted on a nifty wraparound tally for his team-leading 19th of the season.

Colorado cut the lead in half with less than four minutes to play in the second stanza, but less than two minutes after that, Roman Josi completed a masterful give-and-go with Austin Watson to give the Preds a two-goal advantage once more.

From there, Rinne and the rest of his mates held the Avalanche off the scoresheet before Ryan Ellis iced it from his own end into the empty net to finish off the day - and get their head coach the monumental win.
"He's a guy that gets the best out of everyone," Bonino said of Laviolette. "We're all very happy for him - 600 is a lot of wins, so that's a great milestone."

Notes:
Peter Laviolette is the 20th head coach in NHL history to reach the 600-win plateau and just the second U.S.-born coach to attain the feat.
Defenseman Matt Irwin got back in the Nashville lineup on Monday with Yannick Weber sitting as a healthy scratch.
Nashville's final game before the All-Star Break and subsequent bye week comes Wednesday night (at 9 p.m. CT on NBCSN) in Las Vegas against the Golden Knights.