SENATORS DIDN’T FADE UNDER BROADWAY LIGHTS
Ottawa wins in six games, awaits winner of Pens/Caps series
The Senators pulled off their Miracle on 34th Street on Tuesday night.
The Senators sent the New York Rangers packing from the NHL playoffs. Ottawa won 4-2 in Game 6 at Madison Square Garden to qualify for the East final for the first time since 2007 with a 4-2 series win.
Nobody expected the Senators to be one of the NHL’s final four, but they booked their ticket with a standout two-point effort by captain Erik Karlsson, while Mark Stone and Mike Hoffman also beat New York goalie Henrik Lundqvist.
Ottawa netminder Craig Anderson had his best performance in this playoff series.
The Senators were able to survive a massive push by the Rangers as Chris Kreider and Mika Zibanejad scored for New York before Jean-Gabriel Pageau salted it away, scoring into an empty net. Ottawa qualified for its third conference final in franchise history.
“It feels great,” said Pageau. “It was a great team effort. It shows that we needed everyone. (Anderson) played outstanding the whole series and everyone did their job.
“But we don’t want to just sit on this now. We want to focus on the next series, but it feels really good to beat a really good team.”
The Senators now await the winner of Wednesday night’s Game 7 between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals at the Verizon Center. The Senators are expected to start the East final on the road in Game 1 on Saturday and Game 2 on Monday. It’s expected Game 3 will be played next Wednesday at the Canadian Tire Centre, with the possibility of a two-day break before Game 4 next Saturday, but the schedule hasn’t been finalized. The Rangers came out flying in the third and gave everything they had to stay alive. They made life difficult for the Senators by sending a message early. Only 53 seconds into the third, with the Senators holding a 3-1 lead, Kreider broke in alone to move the Rangers back to within a goal.
Through 40 minutes, the Senators were giving themselves a chance and were ahead 3-1 despite being outshot 24-21.
“The difference was the start,” said Stone. “We had a great first goal from Hoffman and we just kept pushing. We didn’t sit back. We just continued to move our legs.”