Pens ice Sens in second overtime
PITTSBURGH — The Ottawa Senators remarkable ride has finally come to an end.
Sidney Crosby set up Chris Kunitz for the double overtime winner and his second goal of the night as the Pittsburgh Penguins ended the Sens’ season 3-2 in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final.
“It’s one of those games where, when the stakes are this high, anything can happen,” Crosby said. “It’s relief and excitement to know you’re moving on and you’re going to be playing in the Stanley Cup final.”
Ottawa twice rallied in pursuit of a first Stanley Cup final appearance in 10 years, falling just short against the defending champs while dropping to 0-6 in Game 7s.
Erik Karlsson assisted on goals from Mark Stone and Ryan Dzingel. Craig Anderson was terrific with 39 saves.
“We kept putting pucks on him and we trusted that eventually we’d find a way to put one in. He was incredible,” Crosby said of Anderson. “Some of those saves he was making and some of the ones that seem to lay there and we couldn’t get, we had to work for it.”
Justin Schultz also scored for the Penguins and Matt Murray came up with 27 stops.
Pittsburgh’s pursuit of a second straight Cup begins Monday night against Nashville.
The loss ends a storybook ride for Ottawa few could have anticipated. The Sens were hardly a sure thing to even make the playoffs, let alone win two rounds and take the defending Stanley Cup champions to seven games.
Ottawa defied odds all year by embracing the ways of first-year coach Guy Boucher. That meant a defence-first approach which often saw the Sens trying to win games 1-0 or 2-1. It was that thin margin for error that made the club such an unlikely candidate to go deep in the playoffs.
Their run was fuelled in large part by Karlsson. While slowing down in the conference final amid injuries, fatigue and a nightly duel with Crosby, the 26-year-old captain had a sensational regular season and was even better in series wins over Boston and New York.
He finished the playoffs with 18 points in 19 games and if he wasn’t briefly the best player on the planet, he was close.
Anderson was also brilliant at times, winning Game 6 almost by himself and then shining once more in Game 7. The 36-year-old has been a testament to resiliency all year, powering Ottawa when he wasn’t with his wife, Nicholle, as she battled cancer.
Though they might not feel like an up-and-coming Eastern powerhouse, the core of the Sens is relatively young: Karlsson turns 27 this month, Stone is 25, Mike Hoffman and Kyle Turris are both 27, and Jean-Gabriel Pageau is only 24. Also on the way are intriguing prospects such as Colin White and Thomas Chabot.
In question is whether Ottawa can make another deep run playing Boucher’s way. Teams that keep the puck less than their opponent typically don’t fare well over the long haul, and the head coach’s staunch defensive style might not be as enjoyable for players when those close games start going the other way.
Boucher took the Lightning to the Eastern Conference final in his first season there, missed the playoffs the next season and was fired the year after that.