Girard picks the OT winner, Avalanche Edge Predators

Devon Toews and Mikko Rantanen scored goals and Girard also had an assist for the Avalanche (8-8-0), who have won two straight and three of four games. Nathan MacKinnon had an assist to extend his early-season home point streak to 10 games (five goals, 17 assists), and Alexandar Georgiev made 29 saves.

“I thought it was a pretty even hockey game. They won the first period for sure,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “I didn’t like our first one. We won the second one. Third place was pretty even. So it’s good to get two points.”

Luke Evangelista and Colton Sissons scored for the Predators (5-9-2), who have lost four of five. Saros made 29 saves.

“I thought we did some things that put us in a really good position to win a hockey game. We didn’t capitalize on it at times and obviously made a little mistake toward the end,” Nashville coach Andrew Brunette said. “We’re still trying to build our 5-on-5 game.

“We’re just happy to score 5-on-5 goals at the moment. It was hard to get them.”

Evangelista made the final score 1-0 when he deflected a rebound at the top of the crease at 1:45 of the first period and pushed it past Georgiev’s block.

“We had some guys pretty rattled early on and we’re trying to give the guys as much confidence as we can and hopefully that gets them going too,” Sissons said. “Getting into this building and the heights and all those things is never easy, so it’s important to get a point here to start a big, tough journey we’re on. Hopefully we can keep building.”