Juuse Saros pitched a 33-save shutout as the host Nashville Predators ended their season-opening, five-game losing streak with a 4-0 victory over the Boston Bruins on Tuesday.
The Predators entered the game as the lone NHL team without a single point in the standings and had not held a lead at either intermission in each of their first five contests.
Saros made 14 stops during the second period.
Ryan O’Reilly and Luke Evangelista each recorded a goal and an assist for Nashville, while Roman Josi notched a pair of assists.
Tommy Novak and Gustav Nyquist rounded out the Predators’ offense with a goal apiece.
Nashville had a 42-33 advantage in shots on goal and went 1-for-6 on the power play.
The Bruins had not allowed a goal in their previous three visits to Bridgestone Arena and lost in regulation for only the second time in the past 10 head-to-head meetings with the Predators overall (7-2-1).
A power play that came from Max Jones’ second penalty in the first period allowed O’Reilly to score the game’s opening goal at 17:16. Josi slapped an initial shot from the top of the right circle, and O’Reilly tipped it past Boston’s Jeremy Swayman (38 saves) from out front.
The Bruins registered the first five shots of the second period but were unable to find the scoreboard and then surrendered a late goal.
Seconds after Boston defenseman Charlie McAvoy’s double-minor high-sticking penalty expired, Novak doubled the Predators’ lead at 16:55 of the second. Evangelista made a turnaround pass outside the blue paint and dished across to Novak, who slotted the puck through net-front traffic and Swayman’s five-hole.
Saros was busy in the opening minutes of the third, having to defend another breakaway on which David Pastrnak fanned. Saros also made an early power-play stop on Pavel Zacha, who hit the first of two Boston posts during the segment.
Nyquist got ahead of the Boston defense and fired in a wrister off the rush to make it 3-0 with 7:13 left in regulation.
Evangelista added a long-distance empty-netter just over a minute later.
