It snapped the Wings' longest active win streak against any team at seven games.
The last time Nashville had beaten Detroit was Dec. 30, 2013.
The Red Wings fell to 24-26-9 overall and 12-13-7 at home while the Predators improved to 36-14-9 overall and 16-7-6 on the road.
Andreas Athanasiou and Tomas Tatar scored for Detroit while Scott Hartnell, Kyle Turris and Viktor Arvidsson scored for Nashville.
1. Andreas Athanasiou: If there's one player who can make fans sit up and take notice, it's Athanasiou. After Viktor Arvidsson was stopped on a breakaway at one end of the ice, Dylan Larkin found Athanasiou speeding the other way and Athanasiou beat Predators goaltender Juuse Saros at 10:12 of the second period, cutting the Nashville lead to 2-1. It was Athanasiou's 11 goal of the season and Larkin's team-leading 35th assist. Larkin is now tied for 24th in the league in assists. The Wings had a power play in the third period and Athanasiou had a shot right before it expired. It ended up being the primary assist on Tatar's goal. It was Athanasiou's seventh multi-point game of the season.
Quotable: "Jimmy made a big save, just saw Larks pick up the puck and kind of saw some open ice so just stayed in the open ice and he made a great play to hit me. I think we definitely needed one at that point. I think we needed something to kind of get the momentum going so it was definitely good to help out." - Athanasiou
Quotable II: "That's huge. Anytime you can get a big save like that it can be either a momentum shift in the game, or you get a chance the other way. Doubles is really good on those. He found a way to score." - Justin Abdelkader
Quotable III: "Tough read on us to create that chance against. We were trying to make an offensive play and kind of crossed signs and then Howie made a great save and Doubles was late on the change, so he held himself there for a little bit, which lots of times guys will do and good pass by Larks. It obviously gave us momentum at that point. I thought we had been playing pretty good in the second. I think there was a noticeable difference in our compete and our work in the second and third. Also, how fast we played. I thought we played real fast, played to our identity." - Wings coach Jeff Blashill
2. Jimmy Howard: Howard was making his first start since the team traded Petr Mrazek to the Philadelphia Flyers. Howard had to be good, especially early as the Wings had a slow start. Scott Hartnell went to the net and deflected Roman Josi's shot at 4:18 of the first period for a 1-0 lead, then Kyle Turris picked up a rebound of Josi's shot at 9:35 of the first to make it 2-0. Howard stopped Arvidsson on his first breakaway in the second period but couldn't stone him on his second breakaway at 4:50 of the third. Howard finished with 26 saves in the loss.
Quotable: "Definitely we got off to a little bit of a slow start, but as the game progressed I thought we were really good. At the end of it, I just got to find a way to come up with that breakaway save." - Howard
3. Tomas Tatar: You have to go to the net in today's NHL if you want to score and that's what Tatar did. The Wings' power play had just expired and Saros had stopped Athanasiou's shot just before but wasn't able to corral the rebound. Abdelkader was already at the net-front and Tatar went there and shoved the loose puck into the net at 7:54 of the third period, cutting the lead to 3-2. Tatar has four goals and one assist in his last six games. In 12 career games against the Predators, Tatar has seven goals and three assists.
Quotable: "If you play fast all the time, with the speed that we have, you put teams on their heels. In most games it depends who's on their heels. The first period, with their forecheck and O-zone grind, they had us on our heels, and I thought the second and third - there were moments in the third still where they had some O-zone grind. They're a good team. But I thought in the second and third we put them on their heels more often than not because of how fast we were playing in terms of wanting to attack up the ice, wanting to jam it down their throat, wanting the puck, wanting to move the puck up, all those things." - Blashill
