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Big efforts from Erat, Weber propel Predators past Blue Jackets

Oct 19, 2008 - 4:48 AM By Jim Diamond PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Ticker) -- The Nashville Predators put the Columbus Blue Jackets back in their place.

Martin Erat scored twice and defenseman Shea Weber had a goal and three assists as the Predators rolled to a 6-3 victory over the Blue Jackets on Saturday in the finale of a home-and-home series.

David Legwand, Joel Ward and Rich Peverley also tallied and Dan Ellis stopped 23 shots for Nashville, which restored order in the all-time series after having its 16-game unbeaten streak against Columbus snapped on Friday.

"It was kind of vice-versa, last night and tonight," Ward said. "They had theirs yesterday, and we had ours tonight."

The Predators' run of 16 games with at least one point vs. the Blue Jackets had been the longest streak in the league.

"These divisional games are huge," Weber said. "These are four-point games, and we need to win them if we want to make the playoffs.

Jason Chimera, defenseman Marc Methot and captain Rick Nash scored and Kristian Huselius added two assists for Columbus, which recorded its first regulation win over Nashville in over two years one night earlier. On Saturday, things were back to normal.

Legwand and Erat tallied in a span of 4:11 in the first period and Ward scored shorthanded with 3:53 left in the session to stake Nashville to a 3-0 lead. Erat's second tally at 5:26 of the middle period made it a four-goal bulge.

"Playing in back-to-back games, it was good to get a three goal lead early," Erat said. "It is a four-point game against them, and it doesn't matter if it is them or Detroit, St. Louis, or Chicago, we want to get two points against them."

Erat's goal spelled the end of the night for Fredrik Norrena, who was replaced by Dan LaCosta after making just seven saves. LaCosta stopped 17 shots in his NHL debut.

"I didn't stop anything tonight," Norrena said.

"We were poor in a lot of aspects, and we didn't get away with them tonight," Blue Jackets coach Ken Hitchcock said. "We didn't give up a lot of scoring chances, but the ones we did were doozies."

Chimera scored 86 seconds later and Methot halved the deficit at 12:51 of the second, but early third-period goals by Weber and Peverley put the game out of reach.

"It's a little bit of luck," Weber said. "Guys are doing a good job of getting in front of the net, and they are making it hard for the goalies to make saves."

Weber scored his third goal of the season just 27 seconds into the period, and Peverley tallied at 4:01.

"They did their best to get back into the game, but we were fortunate to get goals by Pevs and Weber," Ellis said.