In particular, Tuesday's third period - especially the first five minutes - made the difference. The Kings had their pushes in the final frame as well, but the Preds seemed to bump their play to another level in the period, a culmination of an impressive work ethic through much of their first three outings of the season.
"I'm just happy for the guys," Preds Head Coach John Hynes said. "We've played some good hockey here and haven't got rewarded for it. Tonight, we got rewarded for it. The work and effort that they put into training camp, and just staying with it, even down by one going into the third period, we felt pretty good about our game going in there, but it was nice [to get the win]... It was good to see. The guys have put in a lot of hard work, doing a lot of the right things, and [it's] good to get rewarded for it."
With the first win out of the way, the Predators can now turn their attention to a Thursday meeting with the New York Rangers to finish their four-game homestand, and the prospect of finishing the stretch with a pair of triumphs is much more appealing.
"We're playing hard, and I think offensively it's going to keep coming, and we'll keep working," Duchene said. "I think that's the next step here is just whenever we have teams on the ropes to be able to make that last play to get the puck in the net. We're doing some good things, and we're just going to stay with it. We want to be .500 on this homestand. It's going to be a big difference being 2-2 rather than 1-3, so huge with a game coming up."
And for Jeannot, who ended up with the game-winner on Tuesday night, his game epitomized the way the Preds want to play. Jeannot also co-led the team with four hits against the Kings - none bigger than a second-period bulldoze of L.A. defenseman Drew Doughty - exhibit "A" of the hard-working identity Hynes has been preaching.
On Tuesday, it paid off.
"It feels really good," Jeannot said of the win. "We felt like we've been playing well and that maybe we weren't getting what we deserved, but there's a lot of really good teams in this League and you've got to fight every night to win. So, it's good to get that first one, we've just got to keep it rolling."