Ville Koistinen and Jason Arnott scored in the shootout to complete the Nashville Predators' comeback from a two-goal deficit and beat the Detroit Red Wings 4-3 on Thursday night.
Nashville tied the St. Louis Blues for the eighth and final spot in the Western Conference playoff race with a game left for the Predators. St. Louis has two games remaining.
Arnott also had a goal and an assist in regulation and Scott Nichol and Joel Ward scored for Nashville. Pekka Rinne stopped 23 shots.
Nicklas Lidstrom, Niklas Kronwall and Johan Franzen scored for Detroit and Henrik Zetterberg had two assists. Jiri Hudler scored in the shootout. Chris Osgood made 22 saves.
Ward tied the game with 59 seconds left in regulation on a goal-mouth scramble on the power play and with Rinne pulled for an extra attacker. It was Ward's 18th goal.
Arnott brought Nashville to within one with 6:42 left with his 31st goal. He scored on a rebound after a giveaway by Lidstrom in Detroit's zone.
Lidstrom broke a 1-all tie with just 33 seconds left in the second period with a power-play goal. He beat Rinne on a slap shot from the left point for his 16th goal.
Franzen made it 3-1 less than three minutes into the third on a wrist shot from the slot for his 34th goal.
Nichol tied the game with his fourth goal, 6:18 into the second period. He beat Osgood from the top of the right circle.
Kronwall's power-play goal was the only scoring in the first period. He beat Rinne with a slap shot from the point in the middle of the ice with 8:10 left in the opening period for his sixth goal.
Notes
Detroit D Brian Rafalski returned after missing four games with a sore groin. ... Red Wings' D Andreas Lilja, who has been out since Feb. 28 with post-concussion syndrome, won't be ready for the start of the playoffs because there's still a vein in his brain that bleeds. He's been experiencing headaches. ... Nashville LW Antti Pihlstrom missed his fourth game with an upper-body injury. ... Red Wing RW Marian Hossa left the game midway through the second period with a lower-body injury and didn't return for precautionary reasons. ... Lidstrom's goal was his 228th and moves him into 12th in career goals by a defenseman. He had been tied with Steve Duchesne and Kevin Hatcher.
