Ottawa Senators

Senators cap comeback with Phaneuf OT Winner to even series
April 16, 2017, 9:39 AM ET [9 Comments]
Jared Crozier
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After 40 minutes, trailing 3-1 and taking into account the circumstances that put them in that hole, I think most Senators fans who were honest with themselves didn't think a comeback was in the cards.

The Senators have been offensively challenged and netting 2 or 3 goals in a game, let alone a single period, has been a tall task.

They didn't waste too long though, as less than 6 minutes in, with traffic in front of Tuukka Rask, Chris Wideman's seeing-eye point shot dipped right in front of Rask and fell between his glove and leg pad to get the Senators within one. Then Erik Karlsson took over, and showed why he is Erik Karlsson and you aren't, taking the puck from one hash mark, around the ice to the opposite faceoff dot, pulling everyone's attention and then feeding a gorgeous pass back across to where he started, and Derick Brassard made no mistake on the one-timer into a yawning cage for the tie. It was justice that it was this duo who combined for the tying goal, as it was Karlsson who visibly verbally tore a strip off Brassard for his perceived lack of getting back to help out on a play that resulted in Boston's short-handed goal to make it 2-1 but more on that in a bit.

Ottawa took advantage of a late third period penalty to Zdeno Chara, and had the only 3 shots of overtime as Dion Phanuef blasted home a shot from the point after the penalty had expired, but before Boston could really establish their defensive zone structure. That goal blew the roof off the building, because it was a game that for 40 minutes they didn't look like they wanted to win, but they somehow turned it around in the third.

The first 20 minutes was a give-away fest, that they managed to come out of scoreless. The second period was highlighted by Clarke MacArthur's first goal since his return, and first in almost two full calendar years. It came on a power play, and just over a minute after Drew Stafford had opened the scoring for the Bruins.

Then, the wheels seemed to come off. While on a power play, Craig Anderson came way out to play the puck near the boards, and he was indecisive on where to pass the puck with Dominic Moore bearing down on him. He could (and should) have flipped it up the boards to Brassard and out of trouble, but he chose to reverse it back to Karlsson, who was coming around behind the net. Anderson fanned on it and it was a 3 man race to the loose puck, which was won by Moore, who put the puck out front to Tim Schaller, who managed to put the puck past a sprawling triumvirate of bodies scrambling to the goalmouth. While Karlsson was visibly angry at Brassard, this one was on Anderson. Brassard had made himself available for the clearing pass and the safe play along the boards.

That was bad, but then a couple of minutes later the Bruins made it a two goal cushion when Patrice Bergeron made a nice deflection in the slot of David Pastrnak's shot/pass, grazing Anderson's shoulder and finding the back of the net.

But it's the playoffs, and anything can happen, and the Senators found a way to claw their way back into the game and come away with a huge win.

How huge? Well, historically teams that drop the first two games at home have won just 10.8% of the time (31 of 286 previous occurrences) while spitting the first two home games the odds of the team that started with home ice have won 55% of the series.

So as they head to Boston with a split, their chances are much better than they would have been without the third period comeback.

Both teams played most of the game with just five defensemen, after Mark Borowiecki and Adam McQuaid left in the first period with lower and upper body injuries respectively. Borowiecki's injury looked bad, possibly sprained or even broken ankle (having had that injury twice myself), but apparently wanted to come back so it might not be too bad. Some would argue the Senators would be stronger with Freddie Claesson in the lineup instead of Borowiecki, but Boston would be hard pressed to find another blueliner if McQuaid cannot return. Already without Torey Krug, Colin Miller and Brendan Carlo, their blueline depth is already being tested.

We had to wait two days between game one and two, but now they will square off every other day until one team gets to 4.