Nashville centre David Legwand, left, lines up a shot on Los Angeles goalie Jonathan Quick. (Gus Ruelas/Associated Press)

Francis Bouillon, Cody Franson and Joel Ward scored to lead the visiting Nashville Predators to a 3-1 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday.

Dan Ellis made 27 saves in his first start since Oct. 28, when he was pulled by coach Barry Trotz early in the second period after giving up three goals on 10 shots in a game the Predators rallied to win 4-3 at Minnesota.

"That's a big thing for our team. We need our defencemen to score," Ellis said.

"We don't have an abundance of talent and we don't have a surefire sniper. Jason Arnott is the closest thing we've got, so we need to score by committee and we need to score with grit. That's what we're starting to do."

The Predators opened the scoring Saturday at 16:38 of the second period while Raitis Ivanans was off for hooking Jordin Tootoo.

Franson fired wide on a one-timer from the right point but Bouillon beat forward Wayne Simmonds to the loose puck after it caromed off the end boards. He scored on Jon Quick from a sharp angle on the power play for his 22nd goal in 10-plus NHL seasons.

"When our D contributes on the back end, it gives us a much better chance to win, obviously," Predators head coach Barry Trotz said. "I thought we had good energy today, and we stayed on the puck real hard."

Franson, playing in his ninth NHL game, scored his second goal of the season on a slapshot from just inside the blue-line with 15:08 remaining to give the Predators a 2-0 lead. Martin Erat circled the net with the puck and fed it to the right point to Franson. Erat returned to the lineup after missing three games with a lower-body injury.

The Kings got on the board with 11:35 to play as Dustin Brown scored his sixth of the season during a power play.

But Ward restored Nashville's two-goal margin just 80 seconds later when he tucked the puck inside the right post after Quick and teammate Anze Kopitar got tangled up with David Legwand outside the crease.

Nashville played without defenceman Shea Weber, right-winger J.P. Dumont and rookie centre Colin Wilson because of injuries.