Acciari's hat trick lifts Panthers past Predators

NASHVILLE -- Noel Acciari scored his first three goals of the season, and the Florida Panthers extended their point streak to five games with a 6-2 win against the Nashville Predators at Bridgestone Arena on Saturday.

"It was a great feeling," Acciari said. "I was hoping to get one tonight, just to get my first of the season. To get the other two is definitely exciting, and a lot of guys are putting a lot of pressure on me about tomorrow now (at the Carolina Hurricanes)."
Jonathan Huberdeau, Aaron Ekblad and Frank Vatrano each had a goal and an assist for Florida (15-4-4), which swept the two-game set and is 3-0-2 during its streak.
Viktor Arvidsson and Eeli Tolvanen scored, and Pekka Rinne made 26 saves for Nashville (10-14-0), which has lost three straight after winning four of its previous five games.
"It's frustrating right now," Predators captain Roman Josi said. "We're all frustrated. I'm frustrated with myself. We're all frustrated with each other. We're frustrated with the way we're playing right now. We need to find a way to get out of this together. It's obviously not the way we want to play right now. We know it's in the room, I have a lot of belief in this room, but we need to figure it out really quick."

Tolvanen gave the Predators a 1-0 lead at 5:46 of the first period with a slap shot on the power play.
Ekblad scored his third goal in the past two games to tie it 1-1 with 13 seconds remaining in the first, gloving down a clearing attempt by Josi before beating Rinne with a long wrist shot.
Huberdeau gave the Panthers a 2-1 lead at 1:15 of the second period on a breakaway. Patric Hornqvist had the primary assist for his 500th point in the NHL in his 793rd game.
"It feels good to get that 500th point, but the biggest thing tonight was our resilience out there," Hornqvist said. "We score a big goal at the end of the first period and we took over in the second. And then they get a first-shift goal in the third, but it didn't bite us tonight. We just kept going and played the right way and when we do that, we have a really good team."

Acciari made it 3-1 at 11:17 of the second after he got around Nashville defenseman Mattias Ekholm in the neutral zone and scored glove side on a 2-on-1. He then extended the lead to 4-1 at 18:46 on a rebound of Keith Yandle's shot from the neutral zone.
"I was just focused on trying to play a simple game, not grip the stick too tight and get that first one," Acciari said. "It comes in bunches sometimes and I happened to get three tonight. Hopefully I can continue with that game and try to help out the team, whether it's getting on the board or just blocking a shot."
Arvidsson scored 19 seconds into the third period to cut it to 4-2 on the rebound of a shot by Filip Forsberg.
"There's lots of guys who have good moments in the game but not consistent moments in the game," Nashville coach John Hynes said. "Or there's a good game and then there's a bad one or two bad ones. It's not good enough, and that's on us as a group. We've got to find a way to be more consistent."
Vatrano pushed the lead to 5-2 at 14:56 of the third, and Acciari completed his third NHL hat trick with a power-play goal to make it 6-2 at 16:58.
NOTES: Predators forward Matt Duchene will be out 3-5 weeks because of a lower-body injury. … Yandle played his 999th NHL game. … Panthers defenseman Anton Stralman missed the game because of a lower-body injury and is day to day. … Florida forward Grigori Denisenko, who was selected with the No. 15 pick in the 2018 NHL Draft, had two shots, one hit and one block in 12:59 of ice time in his NHL debut. … Arvidsson's goal was his first since Jan. 30 (16 games). … Forsberg's assist on Tolvanen's goal was his 200th in the NHL in his 482nd game.