NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Mackenzie Blackwood made 35 saves to lead the Colorado Avalanche to a 3-0 victory over the Nashville Predators on Saturday night.

Brent Burns scored early, and Nathan MacKinnon and Jack Drury added empty-net goals for the Avalanche. Colorado has won eight straight, their longest winning streak since taking nine in a row March 4-24, 2024.

The Avalanche hold the best record in the league and are five points up from the second-place Carolina Hurricanes.

Juuse Saros made 23 saves for the Predators, losers of seven of eight. Saturday was the first game back in North America for the Predators after playing a pair of Global Series games last week against the Pittsburgh Penguins in Stockholm, Sweden. The Predators have been shutout in consecutive games.

The shutout was the first of the season and 15th of Blackwood’s career.

Burns scored the game’s first goal just 15 seconds after the opening faceoff.

After a battle in the right corner, the puck came to Burns above the right circle, where he beat Saros with a wrist shot on the first shot of the game.

The game remained 1-0 until MacKinnon scored an empty-net goal was 1:35 remaining in the third with Saros pulled for an extra attacker. Drury added another empty-netter with 51 seconds left.

MacKinnon has three goals in his last two games.

Colorado defenseman Cale Makar failed to record a point in a road game for the first time this season.

The Predators outshot the Avalanche 16-6 in the first, but couldn’t get one past Blackwood.

Saturday was just the fifth time this season that an opponent has outshot the Avalanche. Colorado is 5-0-0 in those games.

Blackwood stopped Nashville’s Michael McCarron with 5:47 remaining in the third on a backhand from the low slot to keep the Predators off the board.

Predators captain Roman Josi returned to the lineup Saturday after missing 12 games with an upper-body injury.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

PHILADELPHIA — The Flyers celebrate the star of each victory this season by presenting him with a replica Bernie Parent goalie mask. The white mask with the Flyers logo on each side of the temples looks much like the one Parent wore as a cover boy in the 1970s on Time magazine when the Flyers truly meant something — beyond the Philly sports scene, and even the NHL — and he served as the cloaked face of the Broad Street Bullies.

The Flyers pulled out the mask Saturday night before their game against New Jersey and let it rest on top of one of the goalie nets. One more final tribute for Parent, the Hall of Fame goalie who was honored by the franchise this weekend two months after he died at age 80.

“Forever our No. 1,” said Lou Nolan, the Flyers’ public address announcer since 1972.

With that, the spotlight shone on Parent’s retired No. 1 banner that hangs in the rafters, just a row ahead of the two oversized Stanley Cup championship banners — the only ones in franchise history — that catch the eye in Flyers orange and might not even exist at all if not for the affable goalie from Montreal.

Parent anchored the net for the Flyers when the Bullies reigned under owner Ed Snider as one of the marquee teams in sports. Parent won Stanley Cup, Conn Smythe and Vezina trophies in back-to-back seasons when the Flyers captured the Stanley Cup in ’74 and ’75, the first NHL expansion team to win the championship.

Ahead of the game Saturday against New Jersey, a photo of a smiling Parent flashing his two Stanley Cup rings on the outside arena videoboard loomed large over the 9-foot bronze statue for Snider, the Flyers’ founder who died in 2016.

“‘We’ve got two Stanley Cups because of Bernie,” Hall of Famer Bobby Clarke said at a celebration of life event in front of thousands of Flyers fans.

Flyers fans poured out this weekend to remember Parent over a two-day celebration that started with Friday’s service and extended into Saturday’s tribute game. Flyers fans in droves wore No. 1 Parent jerseys during the game — and what would the goalie think even as, yes, his beloved Flyers scored three goals in 26 seconds against beleaguered Jake Allen — and they roared for every highlight from Parent’s glory years.

The loudest cheers were saved for the Stanley Cup highlights.

The Flyers beat the Boston Bruins in six games to win the Stanley Cup in 1974 and beat Buffalo in 1975. Parent had shutouts in the clinchers each season.

On the flight home from Buffalo, the Flyers plopped the Stanley Cup in the middle of the aisle. For close to 90 minutes, they couldn’t take their eyes off hockey’s ultimate prize.

“We were able to just sit back, look at the Stanley Cup and just savor it,” Parent said in 2010. “It was just a special time.”

With Parent the unstoppable force in net, “Only the Lord saves more than Bernie Parent,” became a popular bumper sticker in Philadelphia that would stick on him as a lifelong slogan — and popular autograph inscription request — through retirement and his many years as a team ambassador.

Parent also served as an ambassador for the Ed Snider Youth Hockey and Education program; a youth hockey program created in 2005 for under-resourced youth in Philadelphia.

The program announced Saturday it would honor Parent’s legacy with the Bernie Parent Goalie Development Program, aimed to prepare young people for success both on and off the ice. Flyers Charities presented a $50,000 donation which was matched by Snider’s children.

Parent, team captain Bobby Clarke and Dave “The Hammer” Schultz all became stars for the Flyers under Snider in an era when the team was known for its rugged style of play that earned the Bullies nickname. They embraced their moniker as the roughest team in the NHL and pounded their way into the hearts of Flyers fans. More than 2 million fans packed Philadelphia streets for each of their championship parades.

Most of the living members from the Cup teams attended the game Saturday and Clarke choked back tears at the memorial as he listed other Flyers from the Stanley Cup teams who have since died. Barry Ashbee. Ed Van Impe. Bill Flett. Ross Lonsberry. Rick MacLeish

“And now, God bless Bernie, because he’s going to join them,” Clarke said. “And the rest of us, until we go join them, we will talk together forever.”

Imagine moving to a country you’ve never been to before, with a culture you have no knowledge of and with a language you’re unable to speak. You’re with your whole family, including three children. And your new home, not your old one, is at war with its neighbour.

Well, that’s exactly what the Hare family did, who relocated to Russia from the United States two years ago because they felt “persecuted”.

“We were noticing a great upsurge in LGBT-type policies coming into the government, especially the school system,” Leo Hare says.

“This is where we drew a line in the sand,” his wife Chantelle adds. “This is a complete demonic attack against the conservative Christian families.”

The devout Christians, who have three sons aged 17, 15 and 12, describe themselves as “moral migrants”.

I’m chatting to them at their apartment in Ivanovo, a city 150 miles from Moscow. It’s a big change from Texas, where the family lived on a farm and had their own shooting range.

But in a country where so-called “LGBT propaganda” is banned, they say they feel safer than before.

“There are laws that say: ‘no you can’t just run wild and have gay pride parades and dance in front of all the children’. You can’t do this. I like this,” Leo tells me.

The family was granted asylum last year in a ceremony that was covered on state TV. But as unusual as their story may sound, the Hares aren’t the only ones who have turned to Russia in search of sanctuary.

According to the latest figures from Russia’s interior ministry, 2,275 Westerners have applied for a new shared values visa, which was introduced by Vladimir Putin last August.

It’s aimed at those who think the West has become too woke.

Citizens from countries Russia considers unfriendly (which includes Britain, the US and most of the EU) are offered a three-year residency permit without meeting any language requirements or skills criteria.

On the ninth floor of a skyscraper in Moscow’s financial district, a group of adults are holding pens in their mouths and making strange noises.

We’re observing a Russian language class that’s been put on by an expat club to help its members integrate into the local society.

Among those with the bit between their teeth is British national Philip Port from Burnley, Lancashire.

He runs a visa agency for those going in the opposite direction – Russians to the UK – and has been coming to Russia on and off for 20 years. He says he applied for the shared values visa for both practical and ideological reasons.

“I love Russia,” he tells me unapologetically, describing it as “safe as houses”.

“There’s no crime, the streets are clean, it’s well-developed,” he adds.

His view of the UK is nowhere near as complimentary.

“I’m all for gay rights, don’t get me wrong, but I think when they’re teaching them to children in school – I’ve got a seven-year-old son, I don’t want him being influenced in that way.”

It’s unclear how many British nationals have migrated to Russia under the shared values visa, but Philip Hutchinson, whose company Moscow Connect helps Westerners apply for the pathway, says he receives between 50 and 80 inquiries a week from the UK.

“There’s a huge amount of people that are frustrated by the way the country’s got in,” he tells me. “Taxes keep going up and up and up. And we’re giving all this money to Ukraine.”

Mr Hutchinson stood as a candidate for the Conservative Party in last year’s local elections in Britain.

He moved to Moscow earlier this year after his Russian wife was unable to obtain a UK visa, bucking a trend that saw most Western expats flee Russia after its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

I ask him if the war bothers him or his clients.

“It doesn’t,” he answers without hesitation. “As far as I’m concerned, I’m not getting involved in that. You know, I’m not here to deal with politics.”

Read more from Sky News:
How is Britain’s immigration system actually changing?
Everything we know about China’s new ‘super embassy’

But is politics at play here?

After arriving in Russia, many of the “ideological immigrants” post slick videos on social media about how wonderful their new life is.

One prominent American blogger called Derek Huffman, who moved to Russia with his family from Arizona, has even joined the Russian army to fight in Ukraine.

It’s the perfect PR for a country that markets itself as a beacon of conservative values, and as the antidote to moribund, Western liberalism. But Russia insists it’s not running a recruitment campaign.

“We don’t give any social security guarantee or any free housing,” says Maria Butina, the Russian lawmaker spearheading the shared values programme.

“People come on their own with their own money, own families, at their own expense.”

Not everyone’s had a positive experience, though. The Hares say they were scammed out of $50,000 (£38,200) by the family who initially put them up when they arrived in Russia.

And their two oldest sons have returned to America, because of problems finding a school. The family weren’t aware that children are required to speak Russian to be eligible for a state education.

So, do they regret moving here?

“Moving so fast? Probably,” Leo admits.

“At times though, your pathway in life takes you places you wouldn’t have willingly gone. But through God and providence, you’re meant to go through this.”