Preds Beat Rangers to Sweep Weekend Back-to-Back

And to all a good night.

Filip Forsberg extended his point streak to eight games, and the Nashville Predators defeated the New York Rangers by a 2-1 final on Sunday night at Bridgestone Arena. The result gives the Preds a clean sweep of their weekend back-to-back set and a victory in their final home game of the 2025 calendar year.

Forsberg and Steven Stamkos tallied for Nashville, and Justus Annunen made 16 saves in net for the win as the Predators earned their second triumph in as many nights.

“I thought it was great,” Forsberg said of the weekend. “I thought 60 minutes last night was great. Pretty much 60 minutes was great tonight, too. Maybe a little slow start to the second where we try to trade chances with a team that wants to do that, but other than that, really good defensively, really good goaltending and opportunistic scoring as well. So, a really good weekend.”

“I saw a great effort,” Preds Head Coach Andrew Brunette said. “I think everybody’s paddles were in, and they're paddling hard. We knew we were playing a desperate team. We knew it was a desperate time for us, especially coming into the little bit of the holiday break and going on the road for quite a long period of time [after the break]. And I thought we responded. I thought it was pretty much a complete game from our group. Kind of disappointed a little bit that we didn't get 'Big Juice’ a shutout at the end. Something we’ll clear up here.”

Neither team found the back of the net in the opening period, but in the second stanza, Nashville put together a beautiful play. First, Forsberg chipped the puck to Ryan O’Reilly, and after entering the offensive zone, the centerman dished a masterful pass back to Forsberg on the wing for No. 9 to snipe a shot past Jonathan Quick for a 1-0 lead.

“I did [know O’Reilly was going to pass it to me],’” Forsberg grinned. “I mean, he does that in practice. He does that in the game. He's done it for almost three years now. And I didn't move. I think you can probably watch my stride. I didn't take any strides either way. I had a feeling it was coming there and right on the tape as usual.”

The Predators outshot the Rangers throughout the night by a 32-17 count and generated plenty of chances, but Quick kept the game in reach for his club. Stamkos added an empty-netter with Quick pulled, and although the Rangers broke Annunen’s shutout bid with just 37 seconds to play, the Preds held on for their ninth win in their last 13 tries overall.

And a perfect weekend at home during the holiday season in front of a pair of electric crowds? Exactly what the Preds were hoping for.

“People are excited, and that means a lot to us that they decide to spend their holidays here and bring the energy for us,” Forsberg said. “[I’m happy] we can give them a little early Christmas gift with two wins. It was awesome.”

The Predators now have just one game remaining before the Christmas break - a meeting with the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday - and it’s an outing that will provide quite a challenge from a team that has received a recent boost from the acquisition of star defenseman Quinn Hughes.

But as has been the case more often than not as of late, the Preds have proven they’re capable of collecting wins in bunches, too. One more before a three-day hiatus would be the star on top of the tree.

“We're crawling back into this thing, and it's a lot more fun,” O’Reilly said. “Everyone's contributing. It's exciting. It's fun coming to the rink. It was pretty dark there for a while; wasn’t fun by any means. It was tough. But give credit, everyone's been working hard, [and we’ve] got a lot of work left. The focus is let’s get this next one before the break. It's going to be a heck of a challenge. But, we're building something. It took a lot longer than we thought, but it's starting to come. We’re still in this fight, and we're going to keep going.”

“We're not where we want to be, but we're trying like heck to get there, and today was a great example of that,” Brunette said. “We are going through the process, and we're building something now. We haven't [gotten] to where we talked about building an identity. We're starting to, but…the finished product isn’t quite there yet… So, our focus, for me, is wake up, enjoy this, be grateful, and wake up tomorrow morning, get back to work and keep building what we’ve got going.”

Notes:

Preds winger Jonathan Marchessault did not play Sunday and remains day-to-day with a lower-body injury. There were no healthy scratches for Nashville.

Per NHL PR, Steven Stamkos scored his 96th career game-winning goal and tied Mats Sundin for 13th place on the NHL’s all-time list.

Stamkos scored the game-winning goal in consecutive games for the second time this season (also Dec. 2-4). The only other player to score game winners in consecutive games multiple times this campaign is Seth Jarvis (Oct. 9-11 & Oct. 16-18).

With the home portion of the 2025 calendar now complete, the Preds will play one more game before the Christmas break - a meeting with the Wild in Minnesota on Tuesday night.