Ottawa Senators

Anderson drags Senators to two huge points
March 22, 2017, 7:08 AM ET [26 Comments]
Jared Crozier
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Craig Anderson needed a bounce-back in the worst way, not only because he had an off game on Sunday night, but because the team needed a stabilizing force in goal to avoid losing a fifth straight game for the first time this season at a time when the pressure was on to avoid falling into a logjam in the playoff race.

Well, asked and answered. While his team is still looking for a solution to playing a game that doesn't frustrate the heck out of anyone watching, Anderson was sensational in making 34 stops and Kyle Turris provided a pair of goals and that was just enough to allow them to hang on to down the Bruins 3-2.

They managed to hang on over the last couple of minutes, as Boston surged looking for the equalizer and came close on a number of occasions, but the fivesome of Zack Smith, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Tom Pyatt, Erik Karlsson and Cody Ceci killed off the last 87 seconds, including four tough defensive zone faceoffs with the Bruins' top guns on the ice.

The Senators opened the scoring with Ceci putting a shot that pin-balled off Pyatt and Bruins defenseman Colin Miller past Tuukk Rask. David Krejci evened the score on a Bruins power play as the Senators own man advantage proved fruitless (putting it nicely) and gave the Bruins more chances than they have had (more on that later). In fact, the Senators two first period power plays both ended up in them taking penalties to negate the advantage and that was a blessing because their play up a man was Ugly. Even tied 1-1, Ottawa was fortunate to be in that situation thanks to Anderson, and Ottawa finally cashed in on a second period power play as Turris used a Bobby Ryan screen to put one past Rask.

A four on three power play for Boston paid off seconds into the third as Torey Krug channeled his inner Erik Karlsson and knifed through the trio of Senators defenders to lift a wrister past Anderson to knot the score 17 seconds in. Turris redirected a slap-pass from Dion Phaneuf past Rask to give the Senators their third lead of the game, and from then on it was hang on for dear life as the Bruins pressed for the tying go to no avail and Ottawa escaped with a 3-2 win and a now comfortable six point gap for second place in the Atlantic Division.

The Ottawa power play has been brutal of late, 4 for their last 24. They have been timely, but at many points over the past 6 games it has been cause for concern, including much of last night. There is no coincidence that the struggles started when Mark Stone left the lineup and Bobby Ryan came back and was inserted on the first unit. Ryan has become target #1 through social media, even surpassing Ceci and Mark Borowieck in terms of vitriol, which is a tall task. Since he has come back, Ryan has been a passenger for the most part, with the only real positive is his willingness to stand in front of the net. His screens have resulted in a couple of those power play goals but he has also been hit by an inordinate amount of his teammates' shots.

There was positive news from the Stone injury front, as he skated yesterday and has taken a "major step" in his recovery and the "week to week" tag was removed so a return could be closer than we had expected yesterday morning.

Ottawa can take a bit of a breath before hosting Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins Thursday night, with a six point cushion over the Bruins and a solid ten point gap over the ninth place Islanders, this was a big two points and they can't sit back and rest but there is a heck of a lot less pressure at the moment to win the next one. Maybe not the pressure to win, but they certainly need to find a way to rely less on their goaltending and give more support than they have over the last handful of games.