Pageau powers Senators to win
Too much chicken parmesan left Jean-Gabriel Pageau feeling a little full before Saturday’s matinee against the New York Rangers.
It didn’t matter. The 24-year-old put together a “legendary game” at Canadian Tire Centre by scoring a career-high four goals, including the 6-5 double overtime winner. Victory gave Ottawa a 2-0 series lead in the playoffs for only the second time in team history and first since the 2007 Eastern Conference final against Buffalo.
“I think I closed my eyes when I shot and thankfully it went in,” Pageau, an Ottawa native, said of the winner. “I was on a cloud and it’s a moment I’ll never forget.”
Not only did Pageau end Game 2, he made sure it got to overtime in the first place by scoring twice in the final three-plus minutes of regulation to knot the score at five. Both goals saw him tip shots past Henrik Lundqvist — the first from Zack Smith with just over three minutes left, the second from Kyle Turris with 62 seconds on the clock.
He then came streaking in with rookie defenceman Ben Harpur less than three minutes in the second OT and beat Lundqvist glove-side for the winner.
“I thought his quota was full,” captain Erik Karlsson said when asked if Pageau was his pick for the double OT winner.
Unlike Game 1, which saw Ottawa dominate for long stretches before prevailing late on a goal from Karlsson, Saturday’s was a sloppy affair from the home side.
Power-play troubles, in particular, nearly spelled their doom. The Rangers actually finished with more short-handed goals (two) than the Senators had shots (zero) with the man advantage — Ottawa getting nothing at Lundqvist with three consecutive power plays in the first 10 minutes.
Often, it was simple sloppiness with the puck, passes gone completely askew.
The Sens never died though despite the Rangers continually turning one-goal leads into two. Mark Stone cut the deficit to 4-3 in the opening minutes of the third, but less than four minutes later, Brady Skjei scored the second of his two goals to increase the margin once more.
“We couldn’t find our game the way that we wanted to find it,” Sens defenceman Dion Phaneuf said. “But we came in between periods and said, ‘Let’s keep going. Let’s keep pushing.’”
Seeing that it was an