PLUCKY PENS FREEZE OUT SENS IN A SOLID GAME 2
Stanley Cup’s holders won’t let go easily, as netminder Fleury coasts to an easy shutout
PENGUINS 1, SENATORS 0
The Ottawa Senators will have to settle for the split.
The defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins put the Senators in their place with a 1-0 win Monday at PPG Paints Arena that tied the Eastern Conference final at 1-1. The series shifts back to Ottawa for Game 3 on Wednesday.
Pittsburgh’s Phil Kessel, who had been frustrated most of the night, broke the scoreless tie at 13:05 of the third period when he picked up his own rebound off a Jean-Gabriel Pageau blocked shot and beat Craig Anderson with the only goal the Penguins needed after completely dominating the Senators in the final 30 minutes.
This might have been the easiest shutout of Marc-Andre Fleury’s NHL career. The Senators went a span of 18:53 between the second and third period without even recording a shot on the Penguins netminder. If the game plan was to hang on for dear life, the Senators performed to a T until Kessel’s heroics.
Suddenly, the momentum has shifted to the Penguins, and the Senators are going to have to find answers quick because this performance wasn’t pretty.
“They did a pretty good job in the neutral zone and limited our chances,” Senators winger Clarke MacArthur said. “We’ve got to have more pressure — of course you’re going to have it at the end of the game. Tough team to play against.
“At the end of the day, we did our job and we got one (win) here. It’s one of those tight games you want to win. We’re hockey players, but we’re not that dumb — we knew we weren’t going to get four in a row. To leave here with one, you always get greedy and want more, but we’ll move on to the next game.”
Ottawa tried desperately to tie it in the final minute, but couldn’t get it done. The Senators finished with just six shots in the third period.
The Senators were aware this game would be a lot different than their 2-1 overtime victory in Game 1 on Saturday.
“Obviously it’s a tight game, a lot of emotion. We had plenty of chances. It was just frustrating (up until the goal),” said Kessel, who was shown exchanging words with Evgeni Malkin on the bench in the second period. “We’re a resilient group. We always find a way to win, even when we lose guys.”
Anderson kept the Senators in it through 40 minutes. They were dominated in their own end and there’s no question that Pittsburgh created the better scoring chances. The Penguins had a terrible time creating chances in Game 1, so Monday was a flipping of the script.
Ottawa’s best chance came with MacArthur alone in front late, but he didn’t get a shot off.
“The puck was spinning so much I felt like I overskated it,” MacArthur said. “Normally I make contact with it. I tried to make contact with it, I overskated and all I had was (a) quick try to put it up.”
It didn’t take long for the hatred to build up between these two sides. This series finally took a nasty edge, especially in the second. Senators defenceman Dion Phaneuf, who was a force in this game, nailed Penguins rookie Jake Guentzel by stepping into him and sending him to the ice as he came across the Ottawa blue-line.
“You try to do whatever you can for your team to swing momentum, so when there’s a chance to make a hit, I take pride in the style that I’ve played, and if it’s there, I’m going to step up,” Phaneuf said.
There was drama earlier when Guentzel hit the post behind Anderson on a Pittsburgh power play and when Phaneuf crushed Pittsburgh right wing Bryan Rust with a legal open-ice check six minutes into the first. There will be debate over the hit because Rust left the game, but Phaneuf never left his feet.
Anderson had a strong start by making two huge stops on Malkin. It didn’t help the Penguins that they finished the first without two key players, Rust and defenceman Justin Schultz. The latter has played an important role with Kris Letang and Trevor Daley injured, but was forced to leave the game after getting hit into the boards by Mike Hoffman.
“We’ve played five of six good periods. One period cost us the game tonight, and it was the third,” Ottawa head coach Guy Boucher said. “I thought we didn’t manage the puck away on our breakouts. We gave the puck away and it gave them momentum in our own zone.”