Colorado Avalanche (20-18-10) at Nashville Predators (30-10-5), 8 p.m. (ET)
(SportsNetwork.com) - The Nashville Predators aim to snap their first losing streak of the season on Tuesday night when they play host to the Colorado Avalanche.
The Predators had been 13-0 after a loss this season before following up a 5-2 defeat at Detroit on Jan. 17 with last Tuesday's 2-1 overtime setback to the Montreal Canadiens.
The Canadiens got the winning goal with 52 seconds left to play in overtime as P.K. Subban one-timed a shot from the point with Nashville's Craig Smith in the box for tripping.
Mike Ribeiro had the lone goal for the Predators and Carter Hutton allowed two goals on 27 shots.
"I don't think that last penalty was a penalty at all," said Predators coach Peter Laviolette. "It's disappointing to lose a game and to lose a point because our guys battled their hearts out. It's disappointing to lose a game that way because 5-on-5 I like the way we played. The penalties were the difference. They scored two power-play goals."
Hutton made his third start since Pekka Rinne was lost for 3-to-5 weeks with a knee injury. He figures to start tonight and beat the Avalanche the only other time he faced them despite allowing four goals on 31 shots.
Nashville comes out of the All-Star breaking leading the Central Division by three points over St. Louis and Chicago and kick off a three-game swing on Thursday in St. Louis. The Preds visit Colorado the following day, while the Avs are idle after tonight until that matchup.
Nashville was well-represented in this weekend's All-Star festivities despite Rinne unable to participate. Laviolette served as a coach for Team Toews, while Filip Forsberg had a pair of goals to become the first Predators player to score in the All-Star Game.
Forsberg tops the Predators with 15 goals and 40 points this season and was added to the All-Star roster when Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin withdrew due to injury.
Nashville captain and defenseman Shea Weber, meanwhile, won the hardest shot competition on Saturday with a blast of 108.5 mph.
Colorado was to be represented by defenseman Erik Johnson at the All-Star Game, but he was unable to play due to knee issue. The news got worse at Johnson had arthroscopic surgery on Monday and will be sidelined anywhere from 3-to-8 weeks.
The 2006 top overall pick has already set a career high with 12 goals through just 47 games, tied for the most in the NHL by a defenseman this season. He also leads the Avalanche in average time on ice (24:25) and blocked shots (107) while recording 23 points on the season.
"He is, first of all, very disappointed by the situation, but it's out of our control," Avs head coach Patrick Roy told his team's website on Monday. "Now what we control is how we're going to play tomorrow night in Nashville, and that's what we need to focus on. We have a lot of confidence in our group, and it will be a different responsibility for some of our defensemen."
The Avs lost Johnson at a bad time as they sit just three points out of a wild card spot in the Western Conference and won for just the second time in six games last Wednesday with a 3-2 shootout decision over the Boston Bruins.
Nathan MacKinnon scored the lone goal of the shootout after Ryan O'Reilly scored with 1:45 left in regulation to force extra time. Jarome Iginla also had a goal and Semyon Varlamov came up with 22 saves.
Colorado halted a two-game slide despite going 0-for-5 on the man advantage.
"We played well tonight," said O'Reilly. "Our power play didn't work very well, but we took the momentum from that and stuck with it."
Varlamov is 6-3-0 in his career versus the Preds despite a 3.06 goals against average and .896 save percentage in nine meetings.
The Avs have won two straight in Nashville after losing seven in a row there, but lost the first of five meetings with the Preds this season 3-0 in Colorado on Dec. 9. Rinne posted a 26-save shutout and Forsberg scored 2:23 into the game.