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On the last Sunday in November, the Ottawa Senators staved off the visiting Carolina Hurricanes through timely scoring, relentless penalty killing, and key goaltending. Final score: Ottawa 4, Carolina 3.
There's no question that Jason Spezza's pair of goals eventually led this team to victory, but scoring from two other players - Erik Karlsson and David Rundblad - are sure to garner more headlines.
With Erik Karlsson's pair of assists, he - once again - became the league leader in assists, jumping ahead of the venerable Daniel Sedin.
And, David Rundblad's goal - the third for Ottawa on the night - was a glimpse at the future in Ottawa. Rundblad's expected to be a key component for the Ottawa Senators heading forward, and his point-shot that beat Cam Ward at 19:46 hopefully is a sign of things to come.
Zack Smith rounded out the scoring for Ottawa, which should come to the surprise of absolutely no one. To date, there's been no bigger surprise in Ottawa than the play of Zack Smith. The guy's an absolute terror on every shift, and his point production of late has really warranted some major TOI(18:19!). Good on Paul MacLean to reward Smith with a bigger role, too.
The Hurricanes did score three times(Dwyer, Staal, and Ponikarovsky), but considering how many shots and power plays Craig Anderson faced(37 and 8, respectively), that's probably not an issue in the slightest. In fact, it's almost startling that Ottawa was able to win this game with their constant parade to the penalty box. MacLean's going to have to clean up this team in a hurry.
Speaking of power plays, Ottawa finally broke through on that front through Jason Spezza, but all of the credit has to go to Sergei Gonchar for one hell of a pass across the offensive zone. That's what Ottawa's paying Gonchar the big bucks for.
A nice win for the Senators on home ice(11-10-2), but they won't have long to savor it. Ottawa's headed back out on the road for another tough three game test, with the likes of Winnipeg, Dallas, and Washington all up this week.
Back with more later.
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