Quick goal in OT stuns San Jose
OTTAWA — Matt Duchene had a good feeling after Ottawa slimmed a three-goal deficit to one. Mike Hoffman helped him finish the job.
Duchene scored his second goal of the game seven seconds into overtime, and the Senators capped a four-goal comeback with a 6-5 win over the Sharks on Friday night.
Down 5-2 to start the third period, the Senators got goals from Derick Brassard, Duchene and Hoffman. Ryan Dzingel and Mark Stone also scored for Ottawa, and Craig Anderson made 30 saves.
Hoffman and Duchene raced for a 2-on-1 off the OT face-off, and Hoffman slipped a backhand pass across the slot to Duchene, who pushed the puck past goalie Aaron Dell.
“I think we finally got rewarded for the things we’ve been doing,” Duchene said. “We’ve had some tough stretches defensively and offensively, but we’ve been doing a lot of good things for a while and it hasn’t been going in. It’s nice to see that happen. We had a lot of guys step up for us.
“Once we made it 5-4, I think we felt like we were going to win the game,” he said.
Tomas Hertl led the Sharks with two goals. Melker Karlsson, Chris Tierney and Brett Burns also scored. Dell stopped 37 shots.
Brassard made it 5-3 in the opening minute of the third, beating Dell from a sharp angle. Duchene then scored off his backhand, and Hoffman tied it with his first goal in 15 games, midway through the period. The Senators had 17 shots on goal in the third period alone.
“We felt like we were still in the game and playing well,” Stone said. “Obviously, that third goal helps, you get a lucky bounce and I think it energized the bench a bit. Then we score one before the 10-minute mark and ultimately start putting the pressure on them.”
The Sharks were coming off a 3-2 shootout loss in Toronto but weren’t using that as an excuse for the thirdperiod meltdown.
“It doesn’t matter how tired we are,” Joe Pavelski said. “A threegoal lead like that, we expect to win that game, and we didn’t. We’re not going to hang our head or anything like that. It’s about us. We definitely had enough energy to play better than we did in the third period.”