When Peter Laviolette addressed the media on Saturday morning as his club was dealing with a bout of food poisoning affecting a number of players, the Nashville Predators head coach said his team would come up with a plan, one way or another, before game time.

Did they ever.

Kevin Fiala and Viktor Arvidsson each scored twice, and Juuse Saros made 34 saves in his second career NHL start to give the Preds a 5-1 victory over the defending Stanley Cup champions.

The Predators ultimately recalled five players prior to Saturday’s contest – four forwards and a goaltender – and without five of their usual participants, including Mike Fisher and Pekka Rinne, Nashville found a way to collect their second win of the season.

“We could’ve gone out there and hoped our way through the game or waited for lucky bounces,” center Ryan Johansen said. “Every guy in this [locker] room went out there and attacked the game in full force, especially after them scoring a goal like that early on. We kept our composure, and Juuse was phenomenal.”

The Penguins scored less than a minute into the contest, but it wasn’t long before Arvidsson responded on the man advantage to get Nashville on the board with their ninth power-play goal of the young season. With the tally, the Preds set a franchise record with nine power-play goals in the first five games of the season. The previous record was seven, set in 2002-03 and 2005-06.

The clubs entered the intermission even at 1-1, and then the goal horn got a workout. Nashville potted four in the second stanza, including two off the stick of Fiala for his first two goals of the season and the first multi-goal game of his career. Calle Jarnkrok scored Nashville’s third goal of the night, and Arvidsson added his second before the period was out to give the Preds a commanding 5-1 lead, chasing Marc-Andre Fleury from the Penguins net.

All four goals in the second period were scored at even strength, an area the Preds have worked to improve upon over the last week.

“I was pretty sure we weren’t going to go the whole year without scoring 5-on-5,” Laviolette quipped. “Tonight we got four, and it was just one of those things you hear me talk about it sometimes. It’s a little bit cyclical, something always goes south here and there and we just couldn’t seem to put it in the back of the net, but there were a lot of chances and a lot of opportunity and tonight it was good.”

With the absences from the lineup, players like Fiala and Arvidsson saw larger roles, with Arvidsson skating on the top line and Fiala seeing over 12 minutes of ice time.

“I felt great, just 100 percent every shift,” Fiala said. “It’s awesome I scored two goals, but even nicer with the win.”

“For Arvi, he’s a worker, and he can have those big nights like that. I was happy for Kevin, because he’s been working hard,” Laviolette said. “Sometimes I think as a young player, when you’re not seeing it on the paper that things are going your way, [it’s tough] to build a little bit in the confidence area, so he should take a lot of confidence from tonight, he played a real strong game… I’m glad he got rewarded tonight.”

Saros was also stellar in net, and said his first NHL victory was even more special, due to the fact that it came against Fleury, one of his goaltending idols.

“It was a really nice thing.” Saros said. “I have to give a lot of credit to the guys in front of me. They cleaned up the rebounds very nicely, and it was a lot of fun to play in front of those guys.”

The Preds are now set to embark to the West Coast, next week, including visits to Anaheim and San Jose for the first time since facing them last spring in the postseason. With a win over a team like Pittsburgh, it can only help the confidence away from home.

“A 1-4 record is a tough spot and 2-3 gives us something we can work with,” Johansen said. “We’ll use this as some momentum as we head to California.”

Notes:

Prior to Saturday’s game, the Preds recalled forwards Austin Watson, Trevor Smith, Harry Zolnierczyk and Frederick Gaudreau from Milwaukee. The team also recalled goaltender Juuse Saros on an emergency basis.

Preds forwards Mike Fisher, Craig Smith, Colton Sissons and goaltender Pekka Rinne all missed Saturday’s game due to illness. Forward Cody Bass was placed on injured reserve with an upper-body injury.

Gaudreau skated in his first career NHL game, logging 9:01 of ice time and tying for the team lead with three blocked shots.

Defensemen Matt Carle and Yannick Weber both collected an assist on the night, their first points as members of the Preds.

All-time, the Preds are 11-9-4 versus Pittsburgh, including a 7-4-2 mark in Nashville.

Saturday marked Nashville’s final home contest in the month of October; the team heads west next week, beginning with a game on Wednesday night in Anaheim against the Ducks.  Face off is set for 9:30 PM and Thunder Radio will bring you the broadcast as part of the Fifth Third Bank/Nashville Predators Radio Network.

Pete Weber’s Post game Report

The Nashville Predators scored three more power-play goals, but ultimately fell 5-3 to the Red Wings in Detroit on Friday night at Joe Louis Arena.

P.K. Subban, Mike Ribeiro and Mike Fisher all converted with the man advantage, but Detroit goaltender Petr Mrazek turned aside 30 of 33 Predators shots on the night.

Netminder Pekka Rinne was again the Nashville Predators best player, stopping 38 shots on the night overall. The Finnish goaltender stopped 15 pucks in the opening 20 minutes alone and faced at least 42 shots for only the 11th time in his career.

“I thought we played pretty hard,” Fisher said. “We made some mistakes that cost us, but we didn’t give up right to the end… “Rinne has been great, he’s been really really good and probably our best player [this season].”

After the Red Wings took a 1-0 lead in the middle period, two Detroit penalties in a 50-second span gave the visitors a lengthy 5-on-3 power-play opportunity, and they cashed in on both. A slapper from Subban knotted the score, and Ribeiro used a toe drag to navigate around Petr Mrazek’s pads and tuck the puck into the net for two power-play scores within 18 seconds of each other.

Drew Miller evened the score for the Wings in the final minute of the second, and then Tomas Tatar and Gustav Nyquist made it three and four goals for Detroit in the third.

“There’s things that we can do better defensively,” Head Coach Peter Laviolette said. “Sometimes [opportunities] are coming off of turnovers too… and maybe not the structure we were looking for because of the turnovers that happened. So those are things that we’re trying to get through.”

Nashville tallied their third power-play goal of the night on a Fisher redirect in front to bring the Preds back to within one, but late Nashville penalties put the Red Wings on the power play where they added an empty-net tally to ice it.

“I thought our guys played hard; we did some things that shot ourselves in the foot, but they competed and played hard, especially with the short bench,” Laviolette said.

It doesn’t get any easier for the Preds on Saturday as they return home to host Pittsburgh while searching for their second victory of the season.

“It was a close one, and guys were playing through stuff,” Fisher said. “It felt like one of those games where we were going to come back, and we just didn’t give up. It’s frustrating to lose, but we have to get back at it tomorrow.”

Notes:

The Predators played the majority of the game without the services of forwards Ryan Johansen and Craig Smith, who left the contest due to illness.

Nashville skated in their final regular-season game at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, 18 years to the day after playing there for the first time ever. The Predators next game in Detroit will be played at Little Caesars Arena, barring a 2017 Stanley Cup Final matchup between the two teams.

The visiting Preds wore Gold jerseys and helmets – usually reserved for home games – at the Joe on Friday. The wardrobe changeup marked the first time the Predators have ever worn their Gold helmets on the road for an NHL game.

Nashville will skate in its second back-to-back set of games already on the young season when they return to Music City to host the defending Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday night.  Thunder Radio will bring you that broadcast beginning at 7 PM.

Katie Cotten of CCMS(in white) battles for a loose ball on Thursday night against White County.

The Coffee County Middle School 6th grade Raider and Lady Raider basketball teams suffered a home doubleheader loss to White County on Thursday night at the CCMS gym. After grabbing an early lead, the girls dropped a 33 to 19 decision to the Warriorettes. The boys suffered their first defeat of the year to the Warriors 44 to 25.
In the girls’ game, Coffee County raced out to a 6 to nothing lead in the first 4 minutes of the game only to see White County force several Lady Raiders turnovers and fouls as they outscored the Lady Raiders 17 to 2 over the last 8 minutes of the first half to capture the win. Coffee County was led in scoring by Maggie Crouch who scored 7 points, Ellie Fann and Nikki Graham each added 4 points for the Lady Raiders.

Jacob Holder of CCMS basketball

For the Red Raiders, it was the hot outside shooting of White County that dropped Coffee County to their first loss. The visiting Warriors nailed 8 three pointers in the game as they broke open a tie game in the first period to win going away. Dayne Crosslin led the Raiders in scoring with 14 points. Jacob Holder added 5 points for Coffee County.
The Coffee County Middle School 6th grade teams will be back at home on Monday when they play host to Harris in a rematch from last Monday. The girls’ game will tip off at 6 PM.