MONTREAL (AP) 鈥� Colton Sissons scored twice, Juuse Saros made 36 saves and the Nashville Predators held off the Montreal Canadiens 2-1 on Sunday night.
鈥淲e鈥檙e starting to understand how to win these kind of games when maybe you lose a little momentum,鈥� Predators coach Andrew Brunette. 鈥淓arly in the year we probably would have caved a little bit, so I think we鈥檝e been able to grow as a team here."
Captain Roman Josi assisted on both goals to help Nashville rebound from a 4-0 loss at Toronto on Saturday night.
鈥淲e needed a good response,鈥� Sissons said. 鈥淚 thought we had some juice at the drop of the puck tonight and played a much better game.鈥�
The Predators have won 10 of 13 to improve to 15-13-0.
鈥淕oing on the third period, I really felt we understood that maybe we didn鈥檛 have the energy, we needed to play a certain way, but we managed the game extremely well,鈥� Brunette said.
Jake Evans scored for Montreal and Jake Allen made 30 saves. Coming off a 3-2 shootout victory in Buffalo on Saturday night, the Canadiens were 0 of 5 on the power play, while Nashville went 1 for 2.
鈥淚鈥檝e really liked our starts lately, but for some reason we have a tough time sustaining that start,鈥� Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis said. 鈥淚 felt tonight, we lost momentum because our PP didn鈥檛 execute.鈥�
Sissons opened the scoring on a power play with 8:19 left in the first period, deflecting a shot from Filip Forsberg. Sissons struck again at 7:03 of the second, with Dante Fabbro鈥檚 point shot bouncing off Allen鈥檚 pad to the unmarked Sissons at the side of the net for his ninth of the season.
Evans made it 2-1 with 35 seconds left in the second, beating Saros with a backhander.
Canadiens defenseman David Savard returned after missing 22 games because of a broken hand. Savard rejoined Mike Matheson on the Canadiens鈥� top pairing and replaced Gustav Lindstrom in the lineup. Montreal sent defenseman Mattias Norlinder to Laval of the American Hockey League to open up a roster spot.
UP NEXT
Predators: Host Philadelphia on Tuesday night.
Canadiens: Host Pittsburgh on Wednesday night.
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AP NHL:
The Associated Press
