Four in the first seal Game 3 for Senators
Crosby goal breaks Anderson’s shutout bid, but very little else paid off for the Penguins
Accused of being boring in just about every corner of the hockey world after the first two games of the Eastern Conference final, the Ottawa Senators left the defending Stanley Cup champions redfaced on Wednesday, pasting the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-1 at the Canadian Tire Centre to seize a 2-1 series lead.
Not only did the Senators frustrate the likes of Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel, Ottawa chased goalie Marc-Andre Fleury and brought Matt Murray off the bench after a four-goal outburst in the first period. The boring Senators were anything but in this one, and now they’re only two wins away from a trip to the final for the second time in modern franchise history.
Ottawa got goals from Kyle Turris, Zack Smith, Mike Hoffman, Marc Methot and Derick Brassard in one of their biggest scoring outbursts of the playoffs, while five different Senators had two-point nights.
With 13:53 left in the third, Sidney Crosby got his first goal and first point of the series to end Craig Anderson’s bid for a shutout. An upset Malkin was given a misconduct with two minutes left.
“We’ve got to continue to get better,” Senators defenceman Dion Phaneuf said. “We played the way we wanted to play and got back to playing the style where we have more time in their zone and not defending as much.
“You could see right off the opening draw, the first five minutes we really pushed with zone time, and we were able to generate offence through that.
“The start was really big for us, but I thought we did a very good job on a very good team.”
Not all the news was good, however, as the Senators finished the game without winger Alex Burrows. He left midway through the second period after a hit by Pittsburgh’s Ian Cole in front of the net. Burrows had to be helped to the dressing room and wasn’t able to put any weight on his left leg as he made his way to the bench.
The Senators weren’t the least bit pleased with their effort in a 1-0 loss Monday in Pittsburgh, and they were determined to push the pace in front of a raucous crowd of 18,615.
“The start was definitely huge,” Smith said. “We didn’t score that many goals the first two games and none the last game, so it was nice to get that start.
“I don’t want to say it loosens guys up, but you’re handling the puck with a little more confidence when you know that some bounces are going your way and the goalie isn’t a brick wall that night. It was nice to get some chances off the start.”
Through 40 minutes, the Senators held a 5-0 lead.
They scored four of those goals in the opening period, while Turris was the first to beat Murray at 18:18 of the second.
That was Turris’s fourth goal of the playoffs.
The Senators were at their best in what was their most dominating effort of the playoffs. Even when they did give up scoring chances, Anderson was dialed in and there to make the saves.
He wasn’t tested a whole lot, though he did make a couple of good glove saves off Kessel and Carter Rowney in the second.
The Senators were given a standing ovation as they left the ice with a 4-0 lead after the first period.
With 7:08 left in the first, Fleury was headed for the bench and Murray saw his first action of the playoffs.
Fleury was pulled after he allowed his fourth goal on nine shots, and that came after Smith scored on a wraparound. Only 34 seconds earlier, Brassard’s fourth of the playoffs had given the Senators a 3-0 advantage.
“That was our best game in the playoffs by far,” Brassard said.
“We got off to a great start and the atmosphere was amazing. Hopefully, this gives us some confidence.
“We’re pretty good. We’re surprising a lot of people, but we know they’re a really good team. They won last year and we expect them to bounce back.”
The Senators got a pretty good bounce to take a 2-0 lead when Methot was credited with his second of the playoffs after the puck deflected off Cole and into the net. Those three goals came in a span of 2:18, a new franchise record in the playoffs. It beat the previous mark of three goals in four minutes set in 2002 against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Only 48 seconds into the first, Hoffman banked one off Fleury from behind the net to give the Senators the lead.
“I thought it was a really solid 60-minute effort by our guys,” Anderson said. “We competed. We did the little things we needed to do. We were physical by being poised with the puck.
“It’s just one game. We have to leave the rink tonight and get ready for the next one.”