More intense, more fun
Senators expecting to face determined Bruins squad tonight
The more intense the Ottawa Senators-Boston Bruins series becomes, the more fun it is for Kyle Turris.
Ottawa can secure a 3-1 series lead with a road win over Boston tonight. But Turris understands victories from here on in will be very difficult to come by.
“As a series goes on it gets more intense, more pressurefilled, just more fun,” Turris said Tuesday after Ottawa took a 2-1 series lead Monday night with a 4-3 overtime win. “It (Wednesday’s game) is going to probably be the most intense game of the series so far.
“Those are the fun games you like to play in. We’ll be ready.”
Ottawa coach Guy Boucher, saying “rest is a weapon,” kept his regulars off the ice Tuesday. Extra skaters got some icetime at Boston’s practice facility but many Senators pondered spending their day enjoying the sunshine and some sights of the city.
The Senators reclaimed home-ice advantage when Bobby Ryan deflected Turris’s pass at 5:43 of overtime to give Ottawa its second straight extra-session win and series lead. But Boucher was quick to say both victories are in the past.
“Tougher game as we move along,” Boucher said. “My experience is the games get tougher and tougher, urgency grows on both parties and it will just be great hockey.
“I think again, close, as it’s been every game against them all year and in all playoffs.”
And Boucher isn’t allowing himself to entertain thoughts of the Senators returning to Ottawa with a 3-1 series lead.
“When we think ahead, we’re in trouble,” he said. “We have to think now and now is the things we did well yesterday and the things we want to make sure we do better.
“That’s the only thing that we’re focusing on.”
Ottawa has won four straight
at TD Garden dating back to last season and is 6-1 against Boston in 2016-17. Excluding the goal a team gets for a shootout win, the Senators have outscored the Bruins 20-14 this season but five games have been decided by one goal, another two by just two.
The Bruins left the ice Monday feeling they were the victims of a bad call that led to Ottawa’s winning goal. Fans showed their displeasure by littering the ice with debris, including bottles filled with liquids.
Interim coach Bruce Cassidy called the goal and ensuing result “demoralizing and disappointing . . . there’s probably a lot more words, but they called it.”
Riley Nash, who was called for roughing after taking a swing at Ryan, took responsibility for the play.
“I think it was pretty selfish of me,” he said. “You know you can’t make that play.”
Now the Bruins have to play desperate hockey tonight.