Win Streak Ends as Preds Fall to Wild

The Minnesota Wild scored four unanswered goals and came back to defeat the Nashville Predators by a 6-4 final on Tuesday night at Xcel Energy center. The result ends Nashville's win streak at five, only their second loss in the month of November.
In a game that saw the Preds hold a 3-0 lead in the second period, Minnesota stormed back to win their fourth straight and leave Nashville searching for answers as to what went wrong.
"We weren't good," Predators Head Coach Peter Laviolette said. "We stopped playing after 20 minutes."
"You can't sit back," Captain Roman Josi said. "Teams are too good, and if you sit back, they're going to make you pay."

Ryan Johansen tallied his first goal of the season just 49 seconds into the game, the only marker of the first period. Josi gave his mates a 2-0 lead in the second, followed by a shorthanded strike from defenseman Mattias Ekholm to go up by three. But Minnesota scored two of their own before the period was out, cutting the lead to one after 40 minutes.

As the final stanza began, Viktor Arvidsson took a slick feed from Johansen and deposited the puck into the cage for a two-goal lead once more. But once again, Minnesota came back with goals from Ryan Suter and Eric Staal to tie the game at 4-4. Then, it was Jason Zucker who gave the Wild their first lead of the night with less than three minutes remaining in regulation, before Minnesota added an empty netter.
"We just got too comfortable," Johansen said. "We had a great first period, and we had to continue playing like that. We let off the gas, and you can't do that in this League."
Nashville will return home to host Colorado on Saturday night at Bridgestone Arena, a chance to start a new streak and erase the memory of the loss in St. Paul.
"You have to be as consistent as possible," Johansen said. "We've been doing a good job of finding ways to get wins, and tonight, we just have to learn from it and move on."

Notes:
Prior to the contest, the Predators switched goaltenders; sending Juuse Saros to the Milwaukee Admirals (AHL) and recalling Anders Lindback.
Mattias Ekholm recorded back-to-back multi-point games for the first time in his career.
Nashville will now start their first true home stand of the season, a three-game stretch that features visits from the Colorado Avalanche (Saturday), Winnipeg Jets (Monday) and Montreal Canadiens (Wednesday).
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