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--It's going to take a herculean effort from the likes of goaltender Craig Anderson if the Ottawa Senators are serious about staying afloat in the Eastern Conference. Once again, the Park Ridge, Illinois native delivered in a big way.
Craig Anderson stopped thirty-seven of thirty-eight New York Islanders attempts, leading Ottawa past New York for the 3-1 victory.
It was a game of firsts for the Ottawa Senators, including F David Dziurzynski's first career goal, F Andre Benoit's first career goal, and D Eric Gryba's first career point. Paul MacLean was serious about the next-man-up mantra after a series of injuries decimated the team's depth-chart, and right now, he's seeing quality results.
One of the biggest positives, at least with respect to an issue I've
talked about exhaustively, was the team's apparently concerted effort to carry the puck into the offensive zone on the man advantage. Daniel Alfredsson's nifty neutral-zone work and eventual zone-gain was the impetus behind Colin Greening's power-play marker in the second-period, and in the third period, Kyle Turris missed a beautiful redirect play from Patrick Wiercioch by a mere inch -- again, the result of possession into the Islanders zone.
While the team as a whole looked demonstrably better with respect to the specialty units, I don't think the club as a whole is going to be captivated by their play when they hit the video. The team had nightmares clearing the defensive zone -- I'll touch on the lone Islanders goal by Travis Hamonic tomorrow, but it bordered on unmitigated disaster territory. Again, you don't expect the same kind of clockwork play following the loss of a player like Erik Karlsson, but this team can't rely on Craig Anderson to consistently bail them out on quality chances against like he has so often done early this season.
In fact, Ottawa's defensive-third play was so porous, I thought the opposition was actually a stronger team for brief periods during tonight's contest. The Islanders out-shot the Senators 38-to-26, and my guess is the scoring chances are going to reflect similarly. The difference tonight, though, was a goaltending mismatch: an impenetrable Craig Anderson on one side, Rick DiPietro on the other.
With a pair of wins in as many days, Ottawa moves to 9-6-2 on the year, staying inside of the top-eight in the Eastern Conference. They're back in action at Scotiabank Place on Thursday, taking on a New York Rangers team that was on the wrong-end of a 3-1 outcome against Montreal tonight.
Back with more later.
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