The Anaheim Ducks keep traipsing to the penalty box over and over against the Nashville Predators.
Thanks to the NHL's best penalty killers, it hasn't hurt them yet, and now the Ducks head home having dug themselves out of an 0-2 series hole
Nate Thompson and Jamie McGinn scored nearly 2 minutes apart late in the second period, and the Ducks beat the Nashville Predators 4-1 on Thursday night to even the first-round series 2-2.
"We're playing with fire," Ducks coach Bruce Boudreau said. "We've got to keep them to two or three minors a game, or it gets too hard on all your players that kill the penalties, like (Ryan) Getzlaf, (Jakob) Silfverberg, (Corey) Perry and (Andrew) Cogliano. They're playing a lot more than you'd like them to play because they're killing so many penalties."
Getzlaf and Cogliano also scored as the road team stayed perfect in the best-of-seven series.
Goalie Frederik Andersen picked up his second straight win by making 30 saves and setting a career shutout streak of 91 minutes, 26 seconds.
"It was a great team effort tonight," Thompson said. "I can't say enough about Freddie. He stood tall for us all night."
Nashville's Mike Fisher scored his first goal of the series.
Nashville lost a 2-0 series lead despite outshooting the Ducks for a second straight game, this time with a 31-25 edge in shots. But the Predators went 0 of 6 with the man advantage and are 1 of 19 on the power play in this series against the NHL's best penalty killers in the regular season.
"We don't want to keep doing that to ourselves," Getzlaf said of the penalties. "It's good that they are able to do what they are doing. Their power play isn't getting it done either. I thought it showed great poise by our team."
Game 5 is Saturday in Anaheim.
The Predators, who use country star Tim McGraw's hit "I Like It, I Love It" as their goal song, brought McGraw before the puck dropped to wave a towel and rile up the home crowd. The Predators certainly started playing with more energy than in Game 3.
But Anaheim just missed out on the Stanley Cup finals last spring after losing Game 7 on its own ice, and these Ducks have been through plenty of adversity this season after being 16 points back in the Pacific before rallying to win the division.
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