Ottawa Senators Hold On To Beat The Jets 3-1

After dropping a 3-2 shootout decision to the Minnesota Wild the night before, the Ottawa Senators squeezed out a 3-1 win over the Winnipeg Jets to end their road trip with a 4-0-0-1 record. Andrew Hammond was stellar again in turning aside 35 of 36 shots, and is now 6-0-0-1 in his seven career NHL starts.

GAME RECAP

The Senators came out of the gate looking sluggish, and you have to think a large part of it was due to the team playing not even 24 hours prior. However, the Jets deserve full marks for coming hard out of the gate against a likely tired team. Unfortunately for them, Hammond his usual self, in the NHL at least. Then, at the 4:59 mark, Kyle Turris got the Senators on the board with a beautiful snipe coming down the wing. It was Turris’ 16th goal of the season and 6th goal in his last 10 games. It also came on Ottawa’s second shot of the game.

After that, the Jets kept trying to hammer away at the Senators, both in terms of shots and hits. Winnipeg would end up outhitting Ottawa 33-19 in the game, and often used their strength to create lengthy cycles in the offensive zone. The Jets closed out the period on a poweplay and outshot the Senators 15-6, but were still down 1-0 when the horn sounded.

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The second opened with the rest of Winnipeg’s powerplay, which was unable to beat Hammond. There was also a scary moment for Mike Hoffman as Jets defenceman Tyler Myers shoved him from behind and his head went right into another Jets’ knee. Hoffman was visibly shaken on the play, and shortly thereafter left to see the training staff to stop the bleeding around his mouth and nose. He did return, but ended up playing just 8:44 in the game, the least among all Senators.

Despite the Jets’ physical play, things continued to go the Senators’ way when. Bobby Ryan, off a great feed from Mika Zibanejad, who picked up the puck after Erik Karlsson had passed too far ahead of Ryan on their zone entry, snapped a shot past Jets netminder Michael Hutchinson at 9:07 of the second with Jacob Trouba in the penalty box. Ryan’s 17th of the season silenced a normally deafening Winnipeg crowd, and suddenly the Sens found themselves up 2-0 after having been down by the same margin to the Wild in the previous game.

But the Senators didn’t ease up as less than three minutes later Erik Condra scored his 8th of the season, tying his career high. Turris and Mark Stone collected the assists, which game Stone his 40th point of the season to tie fellow rookie Hoffman. That ended Hutchinson’s night as he was pulled to give way to Ondrej Pavelec.

After being badly outshot in the opening frame, Ottawa manged to battle back somewhat in that regard by outshooting the Jets 11-8 in the second period. Adding insult to injury for the Jets was Dustin Byfuglien leaving the game with an upper body injury. He did not return.

The third period opened with the Jets killing off a penalty that came with 2 seconds left in the middle frame. After that, they started firing on all cylinders again, likely hoping Ottawa playing the previous night would make them tired enough to cough up a three goal lead.

Then, at 5:46 of the third, Jets forward Michael Frolik gave the MTS Centre faithful something to cheer about with his 14th goal of the season after eluding Karlsson in the defensive zone by skating by Marc Methot and the Jets’ Lee Stempniak, a deadline acquisition, as they battled in front of the net.

Suddenly the game looked far more dangerous for the Senators with just a two goal lead. The Jets would end up outshooting the Senators 13-3 in the period, but Hammond was strong once again, and his defence did an excellent job collapsing down low to help clear away rebounds. With Pavelec on the bench for the extra attacker, the Senators faced constant pressure from the Jets, but they held on to close out their road trip with a victory and notch their 7th win in the last 10 games.

NOTES & OBSERVATIONS

Hammond has been a wonderful surprise for the Senators, going 6-0-0-1 during this surprising push for a playoff spot. I’m still not sold that he’s an every day NHL goaltender, as the team’s ability to clean up rebounds and block shots has contributed a lot to this streak on top of his highlight reel saves.
That being said, Hammond is hot right now. Can coach Dave Cameron scratch him right now given how well he’s doing? Craig Anderson is close to returning, but given how well Hammond has played, maybe the team should ride this out until The Hamburglar stumbles.
Despite my praising the Senators for their solid defensive play, the fact of the matter is they were still outshot 36-20 by the Jets. Additionally, Winnipeg had 69 shot attempts to Ottawa’s 37 and, as our own Jack Leiper noted, no Senators player had a positive Corsi tonight while every Jets player did. Part of this can be attributed to this game being the second of a back-to-back for the Sens, but they’ll need to improve on allowing shots as well as getting out of their own zone consistently.
Too often the Jets stopped their break outs and hemmed the Sens in their own end with smart positional and physical play.
A big part of the reason for the Senators’ improvement under Dave Cameron, as Sportsnet’s Garry Galley noted, is his willingness to use the younger players more often and not just constantly go to the veterans, certain ones who, when not injured, cannot keep up with NHL anymore.
With his 40th point tonight, Stone became just the second Senators rookie to score 40 or more in a season since Martin Havlat put up 42 in 2000-01. The first one since then: Hoffman.
While the Senators lack elite talent in their prospect pool, it’s very encouraging to see them develop some legitimate top six forwards, especially from late round picks (Hoffman at 130th overall in 2009 and Stone at 178th in 2010).
Expect the 21 year old Zibanejad to join them shortly in the 40 point club soon. He got his 35th point of the season with an assist on the Ryan goal.

UP NEXT

The Senators next game goes March 6th at 7:30 pm against the Sabres back in Ottawa. Thanks for reading, and, as a great man once said, live long and prosper.

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