Too little too late: Senators’ power play stalls and comeback falls just short as Penguins hang on to tie series
Pittsburgh hangs on for win in Game 4 to leave Eastern Conference final all tied
The Ottawa Senators were fit to be tied.
The Eastern Conference final is down to a best-of-three after the Senators suffered a 3-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference final on Friday at the Canadian Tire Centre. With the win, the series is all square at 2-2, with Game 5 set for Sunday in Pittsburgh.
Penguins goaltender Matt Murray, who led the club to a Stanley Cup last spring, made his first start of the 2017 post-season in place of Marc-Andre Fleury. The Senators pushed Murray but couldn’t erase a three-goal deficit as only Tom Pyatt and Clarke MacArthur scored for Ottawa.
“You can’t wait until the end to try and get back against a team like Pittsburgh,” MacArthur said. “It’s just not going to happen every night. They did a good job defending at the end and it’s never fun to let one get away at home like that.
“At the same time, we know we’re still OK here.”
Sidney Crosby led the Penguins’ attack along with winger Jake Guentzel, while Brian Dumoulin and Olli Maatta also scored for Pittsburgh. This wasn’t Ottawa goalie Craig Anderson’s best performance in these playoffs, but the push by his teammates to get back into the game was too little, too late.
Pyatt brought the Senators to within a goal with 5:01 left in the third when captain Erik Karlsson’s shot from the point was deflected by Mike Hoffman before hitting Pyatt’s skate to bounce by Murray. The Penguins had been trying to protect the lead, but that got the Senators within striking distance.
The power play was a big reason why Ottawa couldn’t get it done. The Senators stretched their slump with the man advantage to zero-for-25 in the last nine games when they whiled away another four on Friday, including one in the final minute, which began a six-on-four advantage when Ottawa pulled Anderson for an extra attacker. The TV cameras caught Karlsson expressing his exasperation about another aimless power play with centre Kyle Turris in the second.
“I think everybody is frustrated. We haven’t capitalized on the power play, a couple of my passes were off and we weren’t connecting on plays that we needed to make to get our momentum going and to give ourselves an opportunity to capitalize,” Turris said. “We gotta start with that and it will eventually come. First we have to execute.”
The Senators had a chance to push Pittsburgh to the brink of elimination, but knew they wouldn’t go quietly into the night.
“I don’t think we came out and played our game the way we wanted,” Karlsson said. “We were trying to find it a little bit — we did that in the third a little bit especially, but if we had done that (early), it probably would have been a different story. We just didn’t give ourselves enough early to give ourselves a chance.”
Maatta beat Anderson on the stick side with only 46 seconds left in the first period with the Penguins, who had a 14-9 edge in the opening 20 minutes, breaking in on an odd-man rush. It didn’t look good on Anderson, who had been solid until that shot. It was the ninth time in these playoffs the Senators have given up the opening goal.
“We knew they were going to come out harder and make a push,” Anderson said. “We never quit. That’s the great thing about this game — we put the hammer down in the third to get ourselves back in this game.”
Crosby, who hadn’t been much of a factor in the first three games, scored his second of the series at 7:41 of the second on the power play to give the Penguins a 2-0 lead. Left alone down low in front of the Ottawa net, Crosby got a couple of chances to beat Anderson on the glove side.
The Penguins pulled out to a 3-0 lead when Dumoulin’s shot appeared to bounce off Dion Phaneuf ’s skate and beat Anderson on the glove side. Ottawa brought it to 3-1 by the end of the second after MacArthur’s third of the playoffs with 1:38 left in the period got them on the board and brought some life back into the building. Before he redirected the puck by Murray, the Penguins goaltender looked unbeatable.
The decision by Pittsburgh head coach Mike Sullivan to start Murray came as a surprise, but something had to change after Fleury surrendered four goals on nine shots in Pittsburgh’s 5-1 loss in Game 3 on Wednesday.
“We put (Fleury) in a tough spot (in Game 3),” Crosby said. “We needed a better start tonight.”
You can’t wait until the end to try and get back against a team like Pittsburgh … It’s never fun to let one get away at home like that.