WINNIPEG – Andrew Hammond, who was one of the NHL’s three stars of the week recently, continued to shine as he put on quite a show Wednesday night at MTS Centre, stopping 35 shots en route to being the number one star in a 3-1 Ottawa win over the Winnipeg Jets.
“We’re starting to play the right way and get rewarded for the work we’ve put in in the past few months,” Ottawa forward Erik Condra said. “(Hammond) doesn’t say a peep. He comes in and does his work and we battle for him.”
Hammond, now 6-0-1 on the year, has gotten these Sens back into the playoff race in the East while the Jets watched a big two points get robbed out of their hands by the Hamburgler as he is known.
“It’s hard to explain,” Hammond said. “It’s just hard work from everyone on the team, and obviously we have that special feeling now, and I feel like it’s carrying over [from game to game] where it doesn’t matter the team we’re playing, we feel like we [can] hang in there and play and be successful.”
Michael Hutchinson was making his fifth straight start for the Jets wasn’t so lucky as he was pulled in the second period after giving up three goals on 17 shots. He gave up two quick ones in a couple of minutes during the second and that spelled the end of his night.
Ottawa got goals from Kyle Turris his 16th, Bobby Ryan his 17th, Erik Condra his 8th.
In all fairness he didn’t have much of a chance because of poor defensive coverage. Ondrej Pavelec came in for the first time in five games and only had to face three shots in relief.
“We’ll go back and find all the things we didn’t like about our game, but at the end of the day (Hammond) was really good,” Jets coach Paul Maurice said.
The Jets came out flying against the Senators who were finishing off a road trip through the West that saw them go 4-0-1.
Jets had all guns blazing as they had the ice tilted in their favor for the whole first period but couldn’t convert anything.
“We can’t say enough good things about (Hammond),” Turris said. “We love him. He is playing great, and we’re just trying to rally for him.”
Newcomer Lee Stempniak looked like he will be fitting in nicely in Winnipeg as he had a couple of great chances and looked good with Michael Frolik and Adam Lowry.
The Jets pretty much dominated and if not for that bit of a lapse in the second might have pulled this one out. Hammond did get some help from a couple of posts including a wide open net that Jiri Tlusty couldn’t find the handle on right in the crease that he rang off the post.
“I think overall we played really well,” Hutchinson said of the Jets, who outshot Ottawa 36-20. “We took it to them. Their goalie played really well tonight, and I’m sure that if it wasn’t for him it [would have been] a different result.”
Winnipeg got its only goal from Frolik who buried his 14th of the season after a nice passing play between Stempniak and Tyler Myers.
The Jets will be holding their breath as Dustin Byfuglien left the game in second period with an upper body injury and did not return, his status will be updated in the next couple of days.
The Jets will head out now for a tough 4 game road trip that starts in Nashville on Saturday night.
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