Sens blow out Pens in Game 3
OTTAWA 5 PITTSBURGH 1 Ottawa leads series 2-1
OTTAWA — Mike Hoffman noticed the chatter on social media about his team’s supposedly boring style of play, but he and the rest of the Ottawa Senators appear not to care as it continues to work.
Ottawa rolled over the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-1 in Game 3 on Wednesday night and now sit two wins from an unlikely trip to the Stanley Cup final.
“If we played a run-and-gun game that maybe some people would rather watch, we probably wouldn’t be here,” Hoffman said after the thorough dissection of the defending Stanley Cup champs. “So we use our assets and that’s what works.”
Though their offensive outburst highlighted the latest victory — including the fastest three goals in team playoff history — the Sens bottled up their opponents yet again. Pittsburgh has scored a mere three goals through the first three games of the series — one in each game, including a meaningless late tally from Sidney Crosby in Game 3.
The Sens struck 48 seconds into the first Eastern Conference final game at Canadian Tire Centre in 10 years. But in the 10 or so minutes after that — with the game still close — Pittsburgh got little going offensively. The usually speedy Pens were slowed down through a contested neutral zone and managed only nonthreatening shots from the outside at Craig Anderson.
Then, Ottawa fired off three goals in two minutes and 18 seconds to put the game out of reach.
The wave began with relentless pressure on the ailing Pittsburgh defence, which was without Justin Schultz for Game 3 on top of usual No. 1 defenceman Kris Letang, who’s out for the post-season. Nowhere was this was more apparent than on the third Senators goal, when continued hounding of the Penguins forced a series of giveaways and eventually a tally from Derick Brassard.
The 29-year-old managed to get a step on Mark Streit, 10 years his senior, who was playing for the first time in the 2017 playoffs.
Hoffman, Marc Methot and Zack Smith also scored during the one-sided first period, which saw four goals get past Marc-André Fleury in 12 minutes and 52 seconds.
The rocky outing from Fleury now has the Penguins at least questioning whether to turn to Matt Murray for Game 4 on Friday night.
Of equal importance moving forward for Pittsburgh, the highest-scoring team in the regular season, will be finding a way past the so-called Kanata Wall.
Head coach Guy Boucher has insisted on an extremely defensive style from the day he took over the Senators last May.