In Stockholm, Josh Norris scored the deciding marker on penalties on Saturday to give the Ottawa Senators a 2-1 win over the Minnesota Wild in the Global Series.
Anton Forsberg made 24 saves, including a penalty shot, for the win.
“We’re in a spot where we need to win every game now to get back on track and it was a good trip to get the group together,” Forsberg said. “I think we’ve done it pretty well with having team dinners and stuff. The guys have had some fun and obviously with four points getting out of here, it couldn’t have been better.”
The penalty shot save came early in the middle frame, with a scoreless tie at the time.
“That’s the way we have to play to give ourselves a chance every night, away from the puck,” Ottawa coach D.J. Smith said. “I thought our defensive zone was as good as it’s been. Our neutral zone, we broke the puck out, we did a lot of really good things. We ended up winning the game but even if we lost, I’d be up here saying the same thing. I thought as a group we were more connected and we looked a lot more organized tonight.”
Ottawa improved to 8-7-1.
“I think D.J. said it before the game that it was going to be a tight one and we were going to win 2-1 so I guess he knew something that we didn’t tonight but it was a tight game,” Norris said. “There wasn’t a ton of room out there. They play hard and Forsberg made a lot of good saves, and we got two points so it was a good win.”
The Wild took a 1-0 lead at 6:22 of the middle frame on a goal frm Marco Rossi .
“What are you going to do?” Minnesota coach Dean Evason said. “We play at 2 o’clock tomorrow but it has to be positive and we believe it was. The group, they know they played hard, they played well. We didn’t get the result which was disappointing, but the process is correct. You just have to keep doing it over and over again and believe that the process will allow you to have success.”
The Wild dropped to 5-8-3.
“For sure this is a big step forward,” Wild forward Marcus Foligno said. “It kind of starts with the penalty kill doing a good job. It just was more of a smarter game, straight lines and not trying to give teams momentum with our bad puck management so we did a lot better job.”
Erik Brannstrom scored his first of the season at 3″22 to tie the game, 1+1, for the Sens.
“It’s a set play by us,” Brannstrom joked. “No it’s not. It was a good pass by him, so it was nice to see it go in.”
Filip Gustavsson made 30 saves in the Wild loss.
“We’re here to get four points,” Gustavsson said. “We’re one point down so we have to get another two tomorrow.”
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