It wasn't quite the outstanding bounce-back game where everything is now hunky-dory, but the Senators ended a slide with a 3-2 win over the Dallas Stars Thursday night.
As the Stars lost their fourth straight game, they contributed to their own demise as much as the Senators. Who would have thought that taking penalties would be the best thing to happen to the Senators? Dion Phanuef, a year to the day he was acquired by Ottawa in a trade from Toronto, scored the second short-handed goal of his career off a Jean-Gabriel Pageau faceoff win to open the scoring on a man disadvantage where Ottawa had already had a couple of short-handed opportunities. Then, less than 3 minutes later, Zack Smith took a penalty and while goalie Kari Lehtonen was pulled for an extra attacker, Radek Faksa did the old "deep drop pass to his defenseman" move, only the defenseman wasn't where he was supposed to be and the puck was shot into his own net. Chris Kelly was credited with the Senators goal, and they carried the lead into the second period.
As has been the case for so much of this season, no lead is safe and a defensive breakdown led to an easy tap in goal for Antoine Roussel off a nice feed from Faksa to bring the Stars within one. Jamie Benn tied it on a shot from near the blue line that somehow found its way through a sea of bodies (4 Senators and 1 Star) and as Mike Condon was trying to see around the traffic he guessed wrong and the puck beat him clean, but the puck went through the mass of players like the POV shot in a Mighty Ducks movie.
Mark Stone had just one shot attempt on the net, and he made it count as he picked up Cody Ceci's shot off the back boards and wrapped in around before Lehtonen could get across his crease for what turned out to be the game winner. Ottawa hung on for the last 14 minutes and survived a late Dallas power play to get a much needed two points.
The Senators went with 7 defensemen, although Freddie Claesson played just over 3 minutes, and his last shift was the one that resulted in the first Dallas goal, and he didn't see the ice again.
Phaneuf and Benn had a spirited tilt in the first period, wedged in between Phaneuf's shortie and "Kelly's" goal, with Benn getting a goal later and neither could find the assist to get the Gordie Howe hat trick, although Jamie's brother Jordie assisted on the Roussel goal so the Benn Brothers combined for the feat.
After having been shut out for two straight games, any goals would be welcomed by the Senators, including own goals on their behalf, which the Stars obliged them. Maybe that will help turn the corner, as Ottawa will host the surging Islanders for the third game of this four game homestand in a matinee Saturday afternoon game.
--- In case you missed it, TSN polled some members of the organization and Ottawa media members to come up with the top 25 players in franchise history to mark the 25th season of the franchise.
Here was the list they came up with:
1. Daniel Alfredsson 2. Erik Karlsson 3. Jason Spezza 4. Marian Hossa 5. Wade Redden 6. Zdeno Chara 7. Alexei Yashin 8. Dany Heatley 9. Chris Phillips 10. Mike Fisher 11. Patrick Lalime 12. Craig Anderson 13. Martin Havlat 14. Radek Bonk 15. Shawn McEachern 16. Kyle Turris 17. Chris Neil 18. Mark Stone 19. Magnus Arvedson 20. Anton Volchenkov 21. Milan Michalek 22. Chris Kelly 23. Ron Tugnutt 24. Antoine Vermette 25. Steve Duchesne
What do you think of the list. At a certain point you could argue for some of the current crop to be on there (Hoffman, Methot) but it is a pretty comprehensive list for a relatively young franchise without a great deal of history.
I would bet that in 5 years if they re-do this survey for the 30th season, Karlsson will close the gap between himself and Alfredsson for the #1 slot (Alfredsson had 22 of 25 first place votes with Karlsson getting the other 3) and Stone will be in the top-5 behind Karlsson, Alfredsson and Spezza and might even pass the currently injured Stars forward for 3rd.