Vokoun Denies the Ducks

It was crunch time late in the third period and Nashville’s Tomas Vokoun was diving all over the ice with the Mighty Ducks on a power play and trailing by a goal.

Despite applying heavy pressure on the Predator goaltender, the Ducks were not able to get the puck past Vokoun, who proved to be the difference in a 2-1 Nashville victory Saturday night in front of 16,312 at Gaylord Entertainment Center.

Vokoun finished with 32 saves, including several impressive stops in the final period, to lead the Predators to their first victory over the Ducks this season.

Vladimir Orszagh and Scott Walker scored Nashville’s goals against goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere, who had 27 saves.

The Ducks remained in seventh place in the Western Conference, two points behind the Minnesota Wild.

“It was a great opportunity for us to kind of shake up,” the standings, Duck forward Mike Leclerc said. “But that’s the way it goes. Around the league, they probably didn’t expect us to win,” Friday night at Dallas.

The Ducks, who had a four-game winning streak end, can point to a sluggish first period for their loss to Nashville, which has played solid hockey after a 2-10-4-4 start to the season.

The Predators, who are 13-8-4-0 over their last 25 games, definitely had the ice tilted in their favor early. With the Ducks getting beat in individual battles on both ends, the Predators scored twice in the first period.

Orszagh scored the game’s first goal, but the real credit for the score should go to Greg Johnson and Kimmo Timonen, who both picked up assists on the play. Johnson set up the score by drawing a defender when he skated hard to the net after passing to Timonen.

This enabled Johnson to find a wide-open Orszagh outside the right post to give the Predators a 1-0 lead at 6:54.

Nashville took a two-goal lead at 15:40 on a nifty score by winger Scott Walker, who jumped on a rebound after Giguere made a save on David Legwand.

“They were prepared for the start of the game and we weren’t,” Duck Coach Mike Babcock said. “They were fresh and they came out jumping. They took it to us and it took us a period to get going.”

The Ducks, who rallied from a one-goal deficit in a victory over the Stars the night before, played a much better second period after being outshot by Nashville, 13-7, in the first.

With Paul Kariya and Steve Rucchin combining for six shots on goal, the Ducks controlled the flow of the game for much of the period and closed within a goal when defenseman Sandis Ozolinsh scored.

Although it did not count as a power-play goal, Ozolinsh’s score came at 7:26, nine seconds after Nashville forward Scott Hartnell finished serving a penalty for interference.

The Ducks continued to force the action, but Vokoun made sure that the Predators kept their lead.

He certainly was at his best in the third period when he frustrated the Ducks by making 13 saves.

“We came out kind of flat and they outworked us in the first period,” Duck defenseman Ruslan Salei said. “We got the momentum back in the second and we got some pretty good opportunities. But we could not capitalize on the great chances we had to score. It’s just one of those games where you feel like you should win, but you lose.”