NHL: Smithson's short-handed goal leads Nashville

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Jerred Smithson scored a short-handed goal midway through the third period to give the Nashville Predators their second regulation victory of the season, 4-3 over the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday night.

After a clearing attempt on Minnesota's power play squirted past Wild defenseman Marek Zidlicky along the boards, Smithson raced to the puck, pulled it back in the slot to avoid Brent Burns, and beat goalie Niklas Backstrom to give Nashville its first regulation victory since Oct. 8 against Colorado Avalanche.

Shea Weber had a goal and an assist, J.P. Dumont and Mike Santorelli added goals, and Steve Sullivan had two assists. Pekka Rinne improved to 2-3 on the season, stopping 11 shots after replacing Dan Ellis at the 2:18 mark of the second period.

Burns, Cal Clutterbuck and Owen Nolan scored for Minnesota, which had not lost a game in regulation at Xcel Energy Center since Feb. 28. Backstrom stopped 18 shots for the Wild, losers of eight of their last 10 games.

Despite entering the contest as two of the NHL's lowest-scoring teams, the Wild and Predators combined for six goals in less than 23 minutes.

Nashville, the league's worst goal-scoring team entering Wednesday at 1.7 goals per game, took a quick lead at just the 2:36 mark. Dumont took a feed in the right circle from David Legwand along the boards and tapped a backhand over Backstrom's right leg for his third goal of the season.

The Predators made it 2-0 less than 2 minutes later — 19 seconds into their first power play. Ignoring his team's NHL-worst 8.3 percent power-play conversion rate, Weber fired from straight on in front of the blue line and beat Backstrom through the legs. Minnesota entered the game second in the league with an 88.1 percent penalty kill.

Not to be outdone, the Wild — tied for 28th in the league at 2 goals per game — scored on their first power play, just 3 seconds after Dumont's tripping penalty. to get on the board 31 seconds into the second period. Burns' second goal of the season started a run of three goals on three shots against Ellis before he was pulled.

Clutterbuck fired a shot over Ellis' right shoulder from the right circle at the 2-minute mark, and Owen Nolan took advantage of an out-of-position Ellis 18 seconds later to give Minnesota (3-9-0) the lead and end Ellis' night. The Wild would take just one shot the rest of the period against Rinne.