Star blueliner Chabot keeping extra busy lately
Winger says goal for remainder of season is do what he can to help rebuilding effort
Tears of joy. Tears of thanks. Tears of victory.
Bobby Ryan didn’t even pretend to hide the emotion after delivering the comeback of all comebacks Thursday.
Playing his first game at Canadian Tire Centre since Nov. 15 — and only his second overall — since leaving the NHL’s substance abuse program after winning his battle with alcohol, Ryan scored a hat trick in the Ottawa Senators’ 5-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks. Ryan added a first period fight for good measure.
Before Thursday’s outburst, Ryan hadn’t scored since the season opener on Oct. 2. The hat trick was his first since Dec. 29, 2014. Ryan was greeted with chants of “Bob-bee, Bob-bee” throughout the contest.
“I knew Ottawa, being the community that it is, that the reception would be good,” said Ryan. “It just got harder to keep the emotions down throughout the game. It was incredible how they supported me. And I guess to contribute. I mean, you can’t write that, the way that went. It was just an incredible evening. So thank you, to all of them.”
Connor Brown opened the scoring for the Senators at the 7:13 mark and Ryan followed up with his first goal only 31 seconds left, resulting in the first “Bobbee, Bob-bee” chant of the night. The first period ended with Ryan fighting the Canucks’ Christopher Tanev, taking issue with a slash across the legs.
J.T. Miller scored for the Canucks with 16 seconds left in the second period and Rudolfs Balcers restored the two-goal Senators lead only 14 seconds into the third period. After Tyler Toffoli made it 3-2 at the 8:16 mark of the third period, the Canucks were in position to tie the game.
But then came the remarkable finish, with Ryan scoring the Senators’ fourth and fifth goals only 19 seconds apart to put the game out of reach.
Ryan paid tribute to his wife, Danielle, for her help in getting him through his off-ice battle with booze. She was in the building, taking it all in, along with the other 12,165 fans at Canadian Tire Centre.
“Everything,” Ryan said when asked about what her presence meant. “This is … we’ve talked about our first game back and the emotions and I’m glad I got the first one out of the way (a 3-2 loss in Nashville on Tuesday). To come home and know she was going to be there. To have her support, not just as a hockey player, but as a husband and everything, means a ton.”
Ryan, who played on a line with Brady Tkachuk and Belleville call-up Josh Norris, says his goal for the remainder of the season is to do what he can to help in the big picture rebuilding effort.
“I just want to finish the season as strong as I can and contribute and help these guys close it out the right way,” he said. “They gave me a chance to play with two very, very good young players that are going to be the future of this club. So, I took that as a show of faith from D.J. (Smith, Senators coach) that I was good last game and our line did well and I got on the board a few times and I look forward to playing with those guys again.”
Told that Norris, a fellow American, looked up to Ryan when he was a youngster, Ryan broke out in tears yet again.
Ryan’s teammates were ecstatic at his success.
“To see him go through what he has gone through in the last few months, it’s hard as a friend and a teammate to watch that,” said Connor Brown. “It’s nice to see him come out on the other side and to see where he is mentally.”
As a team, the Senators’ victory over a hungry Canucks team aiming for the playoffs was impressive.
For what remains of the 201920 season, the Senators are going to be in tough most nights. With Jean-Gabriel Pageau gone to the New York Islanders, Tyler Ennis to Edmonton, Vladislav Namestnikov to Colorado and Anthony Duclair out with a lower body injury, the Senators faced the Canucks with a lineup that had scored a grand total of 75 goals this season. Over on the other side, the four-pack of Elias Pettersson, Miller, Toffoli and Bo Horvat had a combined total of 90 goals alone.
The challenge for Smith and company is to maintain the work ethic, to keep pushing to improve. Norris is only up on a temporary basis, playing his second NHL game Thursday while replacing the injured Duclair and Colin White, but he received an opportunity Thursday to go head-to-head against the Canucks’ best. Norris looked at home, playing on a line with Ryan and Tkachuk.
“You have to continue to work hard and get better,” said Smith of the challenge during the final 16 games. “There are a lot of guys in that room that are trying out for this team next year. It’s probably more valuable how they play down the stretch than, say, a shortened training camp where you might only get three exhibition games. “How you play, how you train, what you are as a teammate … that’s going to tell us a lot about guys if they want to be here next year or not.”
For all that, Ryan provided a bonus against the Canucks, a taste of yesterday. kwarren@postmedia.com Twitter.com/Citizenkwarren