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By Roger Phillips
Pekka Rinne stopped 34 shots to help Nashville Predators register a 4-1 win over the Detroit Red Wings at Joe Louis Arena yesterday. Martin Erat, David Legwand, Colin Wilson and Sergei Kostitsyn tallied for the Predators. This was Predators second win in their last seven games and both victories have come against Detroit. With this win Nashville improved to 3-1 this season against the Red Wings, who are also central-leading.
"We gotta catch those guys, that's our [motivation] here in the locker room," said Nashville forward Patric Hornqvist. The lone offense for the Red Wings was provided by Ruslan Salei. The Red Wings have dropped three of four. The Detroit benched Jimmy Howard after he yielded four goals on 16 shots in just over 30 minutes. His replacement Joey MacDonald did well to finish the game with 14 stops.
The first goal was scored by Erat after three minutes and the Preds were up by two at 14:13 when Legwand potted a Ryan Suter rebound. In the second period, Nashville took a 3-0 count lead when Wilson slid his own rebound past Howard at the right post. Nashville were leading 4-0 just after the midway point as Kostitsyn tapped in a loose puck.
Detroit scored the consolation goal with 3:58 left in the second period. Salei redirected a Henrik Zetterberg feed home from the left post to score the only goal for Detroit. "We had a little push there for a second, but not long enough and not sustained enough and we were good enough," said Detroit head coach Mike Babcock.
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