*Photo from Click On Detroit*
One night after Andrew Copp of the Winnipeg Jets scored 4 goals, Nashville Predators center Rocco Grimaldi decided he wanted to score 4 goals as well. Grimaldi scored 4 goals, Eeli Tolvanen added a goal, and the Predators routed the Detroit Red Wings with a 7-1 win on Thursday night.
The first period was a wild one. Grimaldi started the scoring for Nashville 5:34 into the period, making it 1-0 early. Then came Tolvanen's goal to make it 2-0. After that, Grimaldi scored two more times to make it 4-0, completing the hat trick. To wrap up the period, Bobby Ryan scored for the Red Wings with 55 seconds left to make it 4-1. In the second, Mikael Granlund scored for the Predators to make it 5-1. In the 3rd, Mathieu Olivier scored to make it 6-1, and Grimaldi scored his 4th of the game to make it 7-1 Predators.
Grimaldi said of his 4 goal outing that "I was more in shock. When you don't score for a really long time, you almost forget what it feels like. And then after the third one, the three of us, me and Nick Cousins and Erik Haula were just in the corner laughing. I don't know how fast it was. It was just under 10 minutes I think. Fifteen games with nothing and then three goals in 10 minutes. We just were laughing like 'What is going on?' I feel like my legs were shaking."
Juuse Saros was the winning goalie for Nashville, getting the start in this one. Saros stopped 20 shots out of the 21 that came his way during the game, a rather low workload night for Saros. His record increased to 8-6-0 this season, while Nashville's record increases to 16-17-1, 6th place in the Central Division.
Olivier said of Grimaldi's big night that "I was really, really happy for Rocco. He's been telling me the last few games that he's due for one. I saw him get the first one early, and then he was just gone for the rest of the game and scored three more. It's awesome to see. I think everybody was really happy for him."
Thomas Greiss was the losing goalie for Detroit, only saving 4 shots out of 7 that came his way, getting pulled quickly in favor of Cal Pickard. Greiss's record dropped to a meager 2-14-4 this season. Pickard saved 19 shots out of 23 that came his way. Detroit falls to 10-20-4 this season with the loss.
Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin said of the loss that "I'd say we were out of sync. We didn't execute. We didn't have a good start. We were right away behind the eight ball and gave up three, so it wasn't fair to Greiss. Some of those breakaways, not much he could do. It just wasn't fair to him and we didn't have the start. It went downhill from there."
The Predators travel to Chicago on Saturday to face the Blackhawks, where Pekka Rinne is expected to start. The Red Wings host the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday, with Jonathan Bernier expected to start.
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