Saturday afternoon at the Canadian Tyre Centre, saw game two between the Ottawa Senators and the New York Rangers, with the Senators currently leading the series 1-0.
Barely three and a half minutes in to the game, Mark Staal sat an early penalty for interference against Erik Karlsson, and the Senators were pushing towards the Rangers goal, but when Mark Stone fumbled the puck Jesper Fast chased it down the ice 
towards the Rangers end. Coming in hard down one side of the rink, Craig Anderson didn’t see Michael Grabner coming down the other side in support. A quick cross in front of the crease, and Grabner buried the puck in the net, earning an early short handed goal.
Rangers gave up two more penalties in the first (J.T. Miller hooking Derick Brassard, and Chris Kreider for elbowing Jean-Gabriel Pageau), but when the last penalty expired at 12:18, the score was still 1-0.
With less than three left of the period, the Rangers were once more pressuring the Senators goal. The puck was cleared out to centre, where it was picked up by Dan Girardi, Girardi seemed to pass in to space, across the ice, where the puck was picked up by Pageau who headed straight at the goal, snapping a shot from the face of spot and beating Henrik Lundqvist to tie the game in time for the break.
As the second period went on, each team was holding the other at bay. Just over ten minutes through, with the pressure from the Senators defence piling on, Kreider snapped in a wrist shot from the face off circle to put the Rangers back in the lead, assists from Ryan McDonagh and Mika Zibanejad.
Brendan Smith slash against Stone saw the Rangers get another penalty, but it also saw Brassard’s shot get knocked away by Lundqvist and the puck get collected by Rick Nash. A quick, cross ice pass to Derek Stepan, and Stepan sent a strong shot in to the roof of the net, extending the Rangers lead with another short handed goal.
Less than a minute later, Mike Hoffman took the puck almost the entire length of the ice, to be denied by Lundqvist. Fortunately, Marc Methot was only a few paces behind, picking up the puck and knocking it home, bringing the game back to 3-2.
Not even two minutes later, the Rangers were once more looking dangerous. Mats Zuccarello went round behind the goal, passing out to Zibanejad, who sent it on to McDonagh at the point. A cross ice pass to Brady Skjei, and Skjei sent it straight at the centre of the goal, the puck slipping between Anderson’s legs making the score 4-2.
At the start of the third, trailing by two, the Senators set about staying in the game. Eighty eight seconds is all it took to light the light behind the Rangers goal. Fredrik Claesson passed to Dion Phaneuf at the point, Phaneuf’s shot missed the goal but bounced back in front of Stone, who scooped it up and put the puck under Lundqvist.
A turnover in the Rangers zone, saw Smith pick up the puck in front of goal and head out with most of the other skaters behind him. A quick pass to Brady Skjei, who put the puck under Anderson, making the score 5-3.
With less than four minutes left, the Senators were looking like they were out of the game, when Zach Smith’s shot was redirected by Pagaeu bringing the game back to within one.
Pagaeu earned his hat trick with just over a minute of regulation left, after deflecting Kyle Turris’s shot, managing to tie the game and push it to overtime.
No goals in the first period of overtime meant the players came back for a second overtime period, when the Ottawa hero, Pagaeu, stepped up picking up a clearance from the Senators zone as it crossed the blue line in to centre ice. Moving in at speed, with Tommy Wingles in support, Pagaeu maintained focus and put it past Lundqvist, ending the game 6-5 to the Senators.
Pagaeu, with his four goals was the first star of the game was mentioned by defeated goalie, Lundqvist, “[Pageau] was good tonight, he made some good plays,” he said. “But I wasn’t good enough. I needed to make the extra save there at the end. That’s my job.”
The Senators head coach praised Pagaeu too, “Four goals, that’s absolutely sick,” Guy Boucher said. “It’s not just four goals, it’s the tying goal, it’s the overtime one. It couldn’t happen to a better person.”
At the end of the game, following the two periods of overtime, the Senators managed thirty four shots against Lundqvist, where the Rangers had forty eight shots against Anderson.
Game three will be in New York, at Madison Square Garden, Tuesday night.
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