NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- For the 13:09 that he was on the ice Saturday night, Jimmy Vesey heard nothing less than a dull roar, and occasionally loud, profane chants.

But at the end, the New York Rangers' rookie left winger silenced the raucous sellout crowd in Bridgestone Arena with a shootout goal that helped his team maintain the NHL lead in wins with a 2-1 verdict over the Nashville Predators.

Selected to shoot first by coach Alain Vigneault, Vesey unveiled a move he had successfully practiced three times Saturday morning. Skating in from the left side, Vesey went to his preferred backhand side, then shifted to his forehand and lifted the puck over the stick side of goalie Juuse Saros.

The New York bench erupted with a collective scream that felt the equal of the hostile sounds aimed at Vesey throughout the entertaining game. Those were sounds Vesey swore he blocked out.

"I just tried to keep it simple, no distractions," Vesey said.

For his part, Vigneault said picking Vesey as his leadoff man in the shootout had nothing to do with trolling Nashville and everything to do with what his veteran players eyeballed at practice.

"Our guys said he had shot three times like you would in the shootout and scored all three times," Vigneault said. "I had that in the back of my mind. It paid off for us."

Henrik Lundqvist (14-8-1) did his part, smothering Ryan Johansen's weak backhand and then watching Craig Smith's wrister sail wide right. When Mats Zuccarello beat Saros (1-2-1) on a backhand, the Rangers (22-10-1) owned their first shootout win of the season.

Meanwhile, the slumping Predators (13-12-5), who fell to 2-4-2 in December, dropped to 0-5 in games ending after regulation and 0-3 in shootouts. They are 6-19 in games that are decided following regulation since the start of last season.

"We were on the short end of it in the first 12 minutes," Nashville coach Peter Laviolette said. "We turned the puck over too much. Then we did a lot better in the second half of the game. I thought we managed the puck better."

Rick Nash initiated scoring at 12:13 of the first period, walking around defenseman Petter Granberg down the left side and beating Saros with a wrister to the top right corner of the net. It was Nash's 13th goal of the season and marked the sixth straight match in which he's scored a point against the Predators.

Nashville equalized at 9:22 of the second period when Mike Fisher's straightaway wrister from about 50 feet eluded Lundqvist for Fisher's fourth goal in three games and ninth of the season. It appeared that Lundqvist was screened by Colin Wilson on the play.

But Lundqvist didn't allow anything else into the net, coming up with 14 stops in the third period as the Predators applied steady pressure. His glove stop of Ryan Johansen just over eight minutes into the period was huge, as was a denial of a James Neal wrister from the left faceoff circle with about 2 1/2 minutes left.

"You just try to do a little less," Lundqvist said. "Instead of trying to do too much, you just rely on your instincts. It felt like Nashville turned up their speed a little bit. They have a couple of forwards who like to shoot the puck. It was a good test for us."

Saros, making just his fourth start of the season in place of Pekka Rinne, delivered a solid performance with 26 saves. It was the first time in the last 10 games that the Predators didn't permit at least three goals.

But with Lundqvist playing the role of stopper and Vesey playing the role of silencer, New York won for the fifth time in six games.

"It's about finding ways to win at the end of the night," Vigneault said. "I liked the way we played the first two periods, but our goaltender really stepped up in the third."

NOTES: It was the 23rd time in 33 games that the Rangers have allowed two or fewer goals in a game. ... Nashville D P.K. Subban (upper-body injury) missed his first game of the season Saturday night, with Petter Granberg drawing back into the lineup in his place. ... The Rangers scratched D Adam Clendening and C Brandon Pirri. ... C Reid Boucher was the only healthy scratch for the Predators.