Now THIS is the kind of victory to spark a team’s run up the standings.
Oh, wait. The Ottawa Senators also had one of those on Tuesday, a shootout win over the first-place Boston Bruins.
So, call it consecutive, inspiring wins against legitimate NHL playoff teams, following Thursday’s overtime thriller in Washington, a game that ended as Tuesday’s did – on a goal by sniper Alex DeBrincat.
The Senators have come out of their four-day Christmas break with a purpose, beating two Eastern Conference powers, one at home and one away.
It’s a huge week for the Senators, who have aspirations of getting back into the playoff race. With games against Detroit and Buffalo this weekend, Ottawa has a chance to catch one or both of these teams ahead of them in the Atlantic Division standings. On the heels of their two-game win streak, the Sens are once again at .500, with a 16-16-3 record.
“We’re starting to find ways to win,” said captain Brady Tkachuk. “Guys are stepping up in key moments to get the job done. It’s been fun to be a part of. It’s an amazing atmosphere right now, but we know there’s more levels we’re going to get to.”
Finding ways – like that shrewd craftsman Claude Giroux, laying out to steal a pass in the dying seconds of the second period, with the Senators trailing 3-1. Giroux gets the puck to Tim Stützle, who feints left, shifts right and lifts a backhand to the roof of the net at 19:44 of the period – a message of third-period hope for the Senators and one to the Caps that the visitors were not going away. Not this night.
Finding ways – like Giroux jumping up on Evgeny Kuznetsov in overtime, causing a turnover that led to the two-on-none breakaway – a little sell on a shot, then the pass over to DeBrincat for his second of the night past Darcy Kuemper.
Finding ways – like capitalizing on a third-period turnover by Kuznetsov, leading to a give-and-go between Shane Pinto and DeBrincat, who continues his torrid pace of scoring. ‘The Cat’ has seven goals in his past nine games and four in the last three. This goal sent the game to overtime, which was only right considering Ottawa was the better team most of the night and owned the shot clock, 45-23 in the end.
“They dominated us a week ago,” said Senators head coach D.J. Smith, referring to the Capitals’ 3-2 overtime win in Ottawa. “Tonight (Thursday) I thought we played well, wire to wire.”
Deploying a shoot-first mentality against Washington’s resolve to make cute passes down low, the Senators outshot the Caps 16-4 in the first period. And yet it was the home team that struck first, on goals early in the second period by Alex Ovechkin, the 803rd of his career, and Dylan Strome.
The ever-impressive rookie defenceman Jake Sanderson drew the Sens within one with his second-period wrister that hit a defenceman’s leg and went in.
“I thought there was probably five minutes throughout the game where we weren’t ourselves, but we battled back and I felt we deserved this one,” Sanderson said.
Exactly right. They chipped away. They found ways. And DeBrincat lit it up again, displaying a level of comfort he didn’t have at the start of the season with his new team. As Smith said, he’s a young player, up from the U.S., with a young family, including a baby born last May. He needed time to adjust.
DeBrincat, on his regular line with Pinto at centre and Drake Batherson on the right side, played 19:31, the most of any Ottawa forward, and had five shots on goal. He was one of five Sens players with five or more shots. Stützle had six.
“By this point, you’re comfortable with the systems and who you’re playing with, knowing your teammates – I feel good with my line, we’ve developed some chemistry,” said DeBrincat, understated as usual. “They can make a lot of good plays.”
Considering he has a rookie centre in Pinto, DeBrincat has put to rest the idea he can’t score goals without Patrick Kane dishing him passes, as he did for DeBrincat’s two 41-goal seasons in Chicago. Tkachuk says DeBrincat is extremely popular with his teammates, as good a guy as he is a goal scorer.
Meanwhile, the veteran Giroux continues to do his thing – talking to teammates on the bench and on the ice, animatedly directing them like they were on a stage or film set, and then showing them the way with his clever moves. He has more tricks than David Copperfield.
“He’s a really competitive guy,” Smith said of Giroux. “I asked him in overtime to win the draw and get off. And that’s what he did. I like him and DeBrincat together and Brady and Timmy together . . . he (Giroux) did his job and when he got his chance, he made good on it.”
Giroux won the draw, got off and returned to the ice with DeBrincat to end this game in style.
Onward to Detroit Saturday, to face a Red Wings team that has three wins in its past ten games.