The Ottawa Senators hosted the best road team in the NHL on a rare Friday night home game, and they bit back.
For he first time in 8 games, the Senators exited the first period and they weren't trailing. Despite a couple of solid scoring chances at either end, the game was scoreless after a pretty even opening frame.
Ottawa did end up surrendering the first goal for the 9th straight game, very early in the second when Joe Thornton scored on the power play. But for the second night in a row, the Sharks gave up 4 unanswered goals to an Ontario opponent but unlike the Leafs 24 hours earlier, the Senators held the lead on the Sharks.
Bobby Ryan's nice solo effort driving to the net beat Alex Stalock to tie the game not too long after Thornton broke the ice was the balance of the scoring in the second, and in the third Ottawa's depth players made a rare contribution.
The Senators scored a goal with each of their third and fourth lines on the ice to break the game open mid-third. Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored his 9th of the season lunging in and finishing off a David Dziurzynski shot and then Chris Wideman putting a point shot through traffic past Stalock. Erik Karlsson iced it capping off a nice give and go with Mike Hoffman that had Stalock and Brenden Dillon dizzy. San Jose threatened and got one back before Mark Borowiecki took a penalty with 40 seconds left that made it interesting.
Most Senators fans got their Christmas wish early with the benching of Jared Cowen and the return of Borowiecki to the blue line and Shane Prince to the lineup. While Cowen's benching didn't eliminate some sketchy puckhandling from some of the defensemen, and sloppy play at times. Prince made his presence felt on the Wideman goal, capping off an interesting sequence where he lost his stick and got one from a teammate at the bench in full flight and creating a turnover that he almost converted at the other end moments before Wideman made it 4-1.
While many might wonder what took Cameron so long to make the lineup change that seemed so obvious to almost everyone else, the fact is that having that 7th d-man allowed for some flexibilty. Without Cowen, it put Erik Karlsson into a penalty killing situation. Not that he can't do it, but given his normal workload he shouldn't have to do it. It could signal a long stretch for Cowen in the press box, but it could just as easily be Patrick Wiercioch assuming that role on any given night.
Craig Anderson looked sharper than his last start, suggesting that the rest he finally got with Hammond starting in Washington was much needed and pretty effective. They are going to need both goalies going forward, especially if they are going to allow so many shots against every night. Ottawa has held its opponent to less than 25 shots just once in 33 games this season.
The Senators wrap up their pre-Christmas schedule with a business trip to Florida, starting in Tampa on Sunday and then Sunrise on Tuesday. It is important that they treat it as business and not a holiday in the sun, because the Panthers are breathing down their necks and the Lightning, although they are muddling along like the Senators, aren't too far behind. That gap can close quickly if Ottawa takes their eye off the task at hand and looks ahead to the break at all.
--- The Senators reached the 30 game mark earlier this week, but most of the rest of the Eastern Conference took its sweet time to get there, so this snapshot is a little later than usual, but here is what the Eastern Conference standings look like when they are adjusted to each team's 30 game mark.
The Senators lost some ground but are still on pace to make the post-season. The great play of the Bruins and Red Wings has meant that they sit in the wild card spot. The Senators had a tough stretch and coming out 5-5 isn't the worst thing that could have happened.
They have, at least for the moment, used up some of the margin for error they had built up, but that will happen in the ebbs and flows of the season and this has been a very tough portion of their schedule with the games every other night, the quality of the opposition and the reliance on Craig Anderson to play every night while Hammond was out.
Here is how the prime stats shook out in the third segment as opposed to the first two.
The Senators defy the analytics that would suggest they should be getting owned with their shot differential, but they have been defying those odds pretty much since the dawn of the analytics era. The Senators best segment (games 11-20) is also the one where they had the worst shot differential, although a 30+% power play will cover a lot of those deficiencies.
While the power play has leveled off, the penalty kill was better and the Senators were approaching the elusive 100% when you add the penalty kill and power play percentages on the season.