Turris’ OT goal lifts Ottawa to lead over N.Y.
Kyle Turris’ OT goal lifts Ottawa to 3-2 series lead over New York
Kyle Turris scored 6:28 into overtime to lift the Ottawa Senators to 5-4 victory over the New York Rangers.
Kyle Turris scored 6:28 into overtime to lift the Ottawa Senators to 5-4 victory over the New York Rangers on Saturday for a 3-2 series lead in their Eastern Conference semifinal series.
Derick Brassard tied the score with 1:26 left in the third period for the Senators. Mark Stone, Mike Hoffman and Tom Pyatt also scored and Craig Anderson stopped 29 shots. It was Ottawa’s fifth overtime win of the postseason, including a double-overtime victory here against the Rangers in Game 2.
Jesper Fast, Nick Holden, Ryan McDonagh and Jimmy Vesey scored for the Rangers, and Henrik Lundqvist finished with 32 saves.
Michael Grabner appeared to win it for the Rangers less than 5 minutes into overtime, but it was disallowed because his redirection came on a high-stick.
Turris then knocked in the rebound of his own shot through Lundqvist’s five-hole to put the Senators one win away from returning to the conference finals for the first time since 2007.
Game 6 is Tuesday night in New York.
Ottawa trailed 2-0 less than 5 1/2 minutes into the game, before scoring three times to take the lead midway through the second period. McDonagh tied it for the Rangers late in the second and Vesey gave them the lead with 7:12 remaining in the third.
With Anderson pulled for an extra skater, Brassard tied it with the puck deflecting in off the back of Rangers defenseman Brandon Smith’s right skate.
Teams that win Game 5 when a series is tied 2-2 have gone on to win 78.7 per cent of the time, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, including a perfect 3-0 in 2017.
The biggest early buzz at Canadian Tire Centre came when Chris Neil stepped onto the ice for the first time this postseason, hoping to
give the Senators a lift after they dropped the previous two games at New York.
New York, which trailed for only 4:11 in the first four games of the series, then grabbed hold of another lead with two goals in 66 seconds. Fast got the first one by finishing off an oddman rush and Holden added the second on a weak shot that beat Anderson’s glove far-side.
The Rangers have scored first all five games this series. Senators coach Guy Boucher said he wasn’t concerned by that before the game — the team’s approach should remain the same, he said — and such thinking proved prescient as the night wore on.
Ottawa cut the two-goal deficit in half 50 seconds after Holden’s goal. Lundqvist stopped the first attempt by Chris Wideman, but couldn’t get in front of Stone’s backhand rebound shot, which just crept across the goalline.
Lundqvist looked shaky early on, but made saves that kept Ottawa from tying it in the first. His best stop came when he leapt from left to right to deny Turris’s onetime attempt from the left faceoff circle on a power play.
The Senators fired 15 shots in the opening period after finishing with just 23 total in Game 4. After a Game 1 win, which saw Lundqvist pelted with 43 shots, Boucher said “lots and lots and lots of shots” were necessary to beat the Rangers’ goalie, who entered the night tied for 13th in career playoff wins (61).
Neil tried to make an impression again early in the second when he raced in to pummel Tanner Glass for a big hit on Dion Phaneuf moments earlier.
The Senators struck for two goals 33 seconds apart a short while later. The first came on two fine feeds from Erik Karlsson and Clarke MacArthur at 8:17, the latter a fake shot sent cross-ice to Hoffman who buried the shot past Lundqvist. That tied the game 2-2 and then Pyatt gave Ottawa their first lead when
he redirected Zack Smith’s no-look shot on goal from near the sideboards.
Momentum, though, started to shift back in New York’s favor in the back half of the second. Oscar Lindberg first hit a post as the Rangers spent shift after shift in Ottawa’s zone. The Rangers’ relentless pressure forced some sloppy puck play from the Sens, eventually leading to McDonagh’s tying goal.
Ottawa had only two shots over the final 10 minutes of the period.