NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Dante Fabbro scored with 59.2 seconds remaining to give the Nashville Predators a 3-2 win over the struggling Detroit Red Wings on Thursday night.
Ryan Ellis and Matt Duchene also scored and Pekka Rinne made 24 saves for Nashville, which snapped a three-game losing streak.
Robby Fabbri and Marc Staal had the goals for Detroit, which has lost 10 of 11.
As the clock dipped just below a minute in the third period, Fabbro sent a wrist shot from the right point through traffic that beat Detroit goalie Thomas Greiss on the stick side.
Greiss finished with 20 saves.
Ellis scored the game’s first goal at 14:58 of the opening period.
With the Predators on a power play, Filip Forsberg had the puck in the right circle and slid a cross-ice pass to Ellis in the left circle, where he fired a one-timer into the virtually open net behind Greiss.
Fabbri spoiled Nashville’s hope of getting out of the first with a lead when his wrist shot from the left circle beat Rinne just inside the far post with 34.4 seconds remaining in the period.
The game looked as though it was headed into the third tied at 1 after a mostly sleepy second, but in the last minute of the middle frame the teams traded goals 14 seconds apart. Duchene gave Nashville another brief lead at 19:19, but Staal answered right back at 19:33 to tie it again.
INJURIES MOUNT
Nashville added two names to its growing list of injured players. Predators defenseman Mattias Ekholm and forward Mathieu Olivier were placed on injured reserve, joining defenseman Luca Sbisa and forwards Brad Richardson and Ryan Johansen.
Ekholm, who missed Monday’s game against Tampa Bay due to the birth of his second child, returned to the lineup for Tuesday’s second half of the back-to-back series with the Lightning but did not play in the third period. He is sidelined with a lower-body injury.
CENTURY MARK
It was the 100th regular-season matchup between the teams. Nashville and Detroit are reunited in the same division due to the NHL’s realignment this season. The Red Wings and Predators were Central Division foes from the time Nashville entered the NHL in 1998 until Detroit moved to the Eastern Conference when the league realigned for the 2013-14 season.
The teams have also met in the playoffs on three occasions, all in Western Conference quarterfinal series. Detroit won the first two matchups in 2004 and 2008, with Nashville taking the series in 2012.
POWER PLAY STRUGGLING
After coming up empty in four opportunities with the man advantage Thursday night, the Red Wings have not scored a power-play goal in their last seven games. They are 0 for 20 during the current drought and have just four power-play goals in 15 games this season.
Detroit entered Thursday with the NHL’s second-worst power play success rate at 9.3%, ahead of only Minnesota’s 7.1%.
WHAT’S NEXT
The teams complete their two-game set Saturday night in Nashville.
