Pageau gets the win for Senators in OT
Winter arrived early in Ottawa on Thursday morning with a blanket of snow.
Jean-Gabriel Pageau arrived on the scoreboard in the nick of time Thursday night.
The veteran centre scored the overtime winner to vault the Ottawa Senators to a dramatic 3-2 victory over Los Angeles Kings in front of 9,929 at Canadian Tire Centre.
Pageau’s winner at 3:12 of the extra period saved the day after the Senators had surrendered a 2-1 lead to the Kings and looked like they were in big trouble.
Not only was it the Senators’ third straight victory over the Kings, it was their second consecutive win at home in a game that turned into a pretty good goaltending battle between Anders Nilsson and L.A.’s Jack Campbell. It will give Ottawa a much-needed boost of confidence.
“We’re starting to build something here,” Pageau said. “Two wins in our last three games, and (Thursday) we played a pretty solid game overall. We had a slow start at the beginning, but after that we took over. It was unfortunate that they tied it up. It was good to grab another two points, it was good for the confidence of our team.”
Artem Anisimov and Anthony Duclair scored for the Senators in regulation, while Tyler Toffoli and Dustin Brown replied for the Kings.
The Senators looked like they were home and cooled until Toffoli tied it up 2-2 with seven seconds left in the third period, sending the game into overtime. That goal on Nilsson came with the goaltender pulled and the Senators weren’t able to score on an empty net when Connor Brown made an ill-fated pass instead of shooting on the net.
“I was hoping it would go in the net but they were a little unselfish there and they were trying to pass it around,” Senators coach D.J. Smith said. “We found a way to win so I’m happy about it. It’s easy to get down on yourself and it’s unfortunate there’s seven seconds to go and we’re not under a guy at the net and they end up banging it in. It hurts, but we found a way.”
Anisimov, who missed eight of nine games with a lower body injury before returning Tuesday against the Islanders in Brooklyn, scored his second of the season at 9:50 of the third to give the Senators the lead. That came after some good work by Tyler Ennis in the Kings’ zone and Anismov went to the net to beat Campbell.
The Senators outshot the Kings 33-28 and Nilsson felt they got the result they deserved.
“We played one of our best games so far this year,” said Nilsson, who made a game-saver with the paddle of his stick in OT. “We played a solid 60-minute game and we deserved to win after 60 minutes, but the goal (was scored) there late. It was nice to see we were able to win in overtime.”
It was no surprise that Smith decided to go back to Nilsson after his strong effort in a 6-2 road victory over the Rangers on Monday. He wasn’t nearly as busy as Campbell, but made the stops when necessary and there wasn’t a lot he could do on the only shot that beat him with Brown in behind the Senators’ blue line.
The Kings opened the scoring with 13:09 left in the second. Brown took a pass behind Ottawa defenceman Thomas Chabot and beat Nilsson to give the Kings a 1-0 lead, and that’s the eighth time this season the Senators have allowed the opening goal. They had some terrific chances against Campbell up to that point and weren’t able to solve him.
The Senators finally got on the board with 2:23 left in the second, when Duclair tipped home Nikita Zaitsev’s point shot.