Sens hold on
Team stays tough after emotional day in Boston to keep sixth place spot
It was close, a lot closer than they wanted it to be.
But after an emotional day in Boston on Monday amid the bombs at the marathon, the Ottawa Senators dug down and found the spirit they needed to keep themselves on pace for an appearance in the playoffs.
They had to sweat the final few minutes as the Carolina Hurricanes came close.
But the Senators held on and their 3-2 win, before a sellout crowd of 19,181, kept them in sixth place with 50 points, one point ahead of the New York Islanders, who beat the Florida Panthers 5-2.
It was Ottawa’s 25th onegoal game of the season.
Next up on Thursday: the red-hot Washington Capitals, who embarrassed the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-1.
Mika Zibanejad, Milan Michalek, and Chris Neil scored for the Senators, who are now on a three-game winning streak.
They were helped by another outstanding performance from Craig Anderson, who stopped 32 of 34 shots for his 10th win.
Jeff Faulk and Eric Staal, with a power-play goal, scored for the Hurricanes.
Justin Peters stopped 31 of 34 shots.
Until Zibanejad scored his seventh at 17:22 of the first, the highlight was a thunderous hit by Jared Cowen, who was playing his first game since last spring’s playoffs.
At 13:11, he rocked Carolina’s Jeff Skinner with an open-ice hit that knocked Skinner out of the game and prompted Chad LaRose to retaliate, which ended up accomplishing little.
LaRose not only got beat up by Cowen, he got kicked out of the game.
In the second, the Hurricanes would again try to retaliate against Cowen, this time in the shape of resident thug Kevin Westgarth, but that fight was a draw.
Carolina had good reason to be upset.
Skinner has already had one concussion this season, and he had one last year.
There’s also a considerable size difference between the 6-foot-5, 235-pound Cowen and the 5-foot-11, 200-pound Skinner.
Ottawa got its goal about two minutes after a disallowed goal by Tuomo Ruutu that was deemed to have been kicked in. From the right circle, where he had taken a pass from Cory Conacher, Zibanejad put a shot through Peters’ legs.
The Senators widened their lead to 3-1 in the second.
Goals by Michalek and Neil, on a lovely pass from Guillaume Latendresse, bookended a goal from Jeff Faulk that just squeezed past Anderson.
Otherwise, Anderson was his usual excellent self, in particular on a glove save off Joe Corvo with about five minutes left. If there ever looked like a sure thing, it was Corvo’s shot.
In addition to the Cowen-Westgarth fight, there was also a spirited one between Neil and Carolina alternate captain Tim Gleason.
Gleason might have picked the wrong opponent, though. The linesmen had to break it up after Neil landed about six unanswered punches.