Ottawa Senators beat Washington Capitals 3-2
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It wasn’t pretty, but it ended beautifully for the Senators.
Sergei Gonchar’s first goal of the season on the power play with only 2:30 left in the game propelled the Senators to a dramatic 3-2 comeback victory over the Washington Capitals Tuesday night in front of 19,267 at Scotiabank Place.
Gonchar’s bullet from the point beat screened Caps goalie Michal Neuvirth with Joel Ward in the box. The victory halted the Senators’ two-game losing streak and came in a game where it didn’t look like they had much of a chance of winning.
Playing without top centre Jason Spezza, who was scratched because of a undisclosed upper body injury, the Senators showed moxie by erasing a two-goal deficit against the Caps on the strength of goals by Milan Michalek and Jim O’Brien.
Making his second straight start, goaltender Craig Anderson made 31 stops. He held the Senators in the game for much of the night and was a big part of the reason why they even had a chance at securing the two points.
His best stops came in the dying minutes on Washington’s Mike Ribeiro and Jason Chimera.
Matt Hendricks and Troy Brouwer gave the Capitals a 2-0 lead in the first period. Then, Anderson, who has been in net for all of the club’s four victories this season, and the Senators shut the door to make sure it didn’t get any worse.
The Senators came back to tie it up at 2:20 of the third on Michalek’s second of the season. It came after Kyle Turris won a faceoff in the Capitals zone and then Michalek beat Neuvirth with a backhander low.
Coach Paul MacLean warned the Senators not to take the struggling Capitals lightly.
“They’re big, they’re strong, they’re going to be a handful,” said MacLean before the game. “We better make sure we’re here and ready to skate because if we don’t, they will.”
It just took awhile for the message to get through.
While captain Daniel Alfredsson returned after missing Sunday’s 2-1 win vs. Pittsburgh with the flu, Spezza’s absence forced MacLean to shuffle his deck. Peter Regin was on the top line with Milan Michalek and Jakob Silfverberg.
As bad as the Senators were playing, they were only down 2-1 to Washington after two periods. Outshot 24-15, they relied on Anderson to make the saves while they struggled to find their legs and let the Caps take the game to them.
O’Brien celebrated his 24th birthday in style by moving the Senators to within a goal with 1:13 left in the second. He beat Neuvirth on the glove side and that gave the Senators some jump. Up to that point they’d had little.
At one point, the Senators were being dominated the Capitals so much in their own zone, the fans were booing.
Trying to get offence going, MacLean was mixing and matching his lines, which resulted in the trio of O’Brien, Erik Condra and Binghamton callup Mika Zibanejad getting more ice time. All three played in a role in a goal.
The Senators just didn’t look like they were doing a very good job handling what the Caps were throwing in their direction and it’s hard to even find a tough save Neuvirth made before O’Brien finally put one home to make it respectable.
Up until then, the effort left a lot to be desired.
For the first time in five starts this season, Anderson gave up two goals in regulation. The Caps pulled out to a 2-0 lead with 2:17 left in the first as Hendricks deflected John Erskine’s shot from the circle by Anderson on the glove side.
A bad giveaway by Guillaume Latendresse near centre helped to set up the opening goal by Brouwer. On a 2-on-1, he beat Anderson with a backhander that bounced off his pad and by him on the stick side at 13:15.
This had to be the worst start the Senators have had this season. They didn’t have a lot in the way of shots on Neuvirth and the chances they did get were non-descript. It’s not like he had to make a whole lot of tough stops.
The Senators close out this three-game homestand against the Montreal Canadiens Wednesday at 7 p.m.Bruce Garrioch's main story here
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