After defeating the Boston Bruins in game six, the Ottawa Senators played host to the New York Rangers following their game six victory over the Montreal Canadiens.
The first period at the Canadian Tyre Centre, the Rangers gave up three penalties (Kevin Hayes slashing Derick Brassard, to many men on the ice (sat by J.T Miller) and Brady Skjei for hooking Viktor Stalberg), where the Senators only sat one of their own – too many man sat by Clarke MacArthur.
During the first twenty minutes, the Rangers managed twelve shots on goal, but the Senators kept Henrik Lundqvist busy by getting twenty one on target. Despite this, the period ended 0-0.
Right at the start of the second, Jean-Gabriel Pageau headed to the sin bin following a high sticking incident against Dan Girardi, but the Rangers couldn’t press the advantage.
Five minutes later though, the Senators were a man down again (Codi Ceci for tripping Michael Grabner), Pavel Buchnvich’s pass to Matts Zuccarello was sent back to Ryan McDonagh in space at the top of the Senators zone. McDonagh’s wrist shot went firing past Craig Anderson, putting the visitors in to the lead.
With less than three minutes left in the period, Skjei was sent to the penalty box again, this time for holding Ryan Dzingel.
Kyle Turris sent the puck from the blue line, to Alexandre Burrows on the face off spot. Burrows shot rang the post, and bounced away from the goal. Dzingel was heading in though, scooping the puck up and putting it over Anderson, levelling the score ready for the third period.
It took more than three quarters of the third period, Marc Methot and Mike Hoffman got the puck around behind the net to Erik Karlsson. Karlsson’s shot, from almost on the goal line out against the boards took a small deflection from the back of Lundqvist’s helmet and finished in the net.
“The amount of pucks that we put on the net, we deserved one of those.” Karlsson said.
Inside the last minute, Tommy Wingels was sent to the penalty box after tripping Miller, so Lundqvist headed to the bench to get another attacker on the ice.
Despite their 6 on 4 advantage, the Senators held the 2-1 score for the last thirty nine seconds, taking game one for themselves.
“There’s three guys in line with that puck and I didn’t pick it up,” said Lundqvist, who made 41 saves. “It just hit me in the head and it’s in. I assumed that having that many guys right in the line of the puck that it would not end up right in front of me, but it did, so it’s a tough one.”
Game two will be played in Ottawa on Saturday afternoon, before heading to New York Tuesday.
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