The Ottawa Senators used some third period road magic to overcome a 2-1 deficit and defeat the Florida Panthers 4-2 at BB&T Centre on Tuesday night.
Mike Hoffman had the winner on a night where he was taken off the first power play unit in favor of Zack Smith, and was demoted for a spell in the third period to what was essentially the third line. Hoffman has been one of, if not the most productive forward on the team so the moves were curious, and like Cameron said last season was made to get away from some matchups that weren't working, and seemed to get the desired result.
Earlier in the game Smith scored his first power play goal in more than 4 calendar years to tie the score at one and was on the ice for Kyle Turris' third period PP marker that tied the game at 2 to allow Hoffman's heroics.
Jean-Gabriel Pageau's league leading 4th shorthanded goal, into an empty net after a Mark Stone takeaway sealed the deal for the Senators, who needed a win after the loss on Sunday in New York.
It was a pretty good road game that was not without its share of blunders, and the Panthers seemed to fall victim to the old "first game back from a road trip" jinx. It wasn't the most exciting of games and Craig Anderson was brilliant, and he wasn't overworked as the Senators kept their opponent under 30 shots for just the third time since Halloween night. Anderson allowed a laser-beam shot from Logan Shaw for the rookie's first career goal and fell victim to a nice deke on a breakaway by Reilly Smith but aside from that was great in making his 12th consecutive start.
Roberto Luongo was also up to the task, with two goals against him coming on deflections or rebounds while his team was shorthanded, and the winner came off a scramble where the original shot didn't get through and ended up on the stick of Hoffman, who scored his team-leading 15th of the season. Ottawa managed just 22 shots on him, so it was another case of the Senators making the most of their attempts to rescue a win that early on didn't look like was going to happen.
Mark Stone had 3 assists, all on special teams to lead the way for the Senators. I said in the preview that the Senators didn't want to get into a special teams battle, but they ended up on the good end, going 2 for 5 on the power play and also killing off all 4 penalties they ended up taking.
A game after experimenting with Zack Smith on the second line, Dave Cameron tinkered some more and perhaps sent Shane Prince a message when the former Ottawa 67's winger was scratched so that defenseman Mark Borowiecki could play as a winger on the fourth line. The line of Borowiecki, Chris Niel and Dave Dziurzynski was pretty effective at times and got their job done, but Prince has to take note even if Cameron said before the game that the move was "just using my depth".
Curtis Lazar didn't see much ice time, and in fact his 10:58 was the lowest time in a game this season, aside from the Arizona game where he was injured in the first period. He played just 1 shift in the third period and absolutely no time on the power play, where he had been centering the second unit in recent games.
The Senators travel across the sunshine state and will get the Lightning on Thursday. Ben Bishop & Co. will be in the same situation as the Panthers were, coming back home following a three game California road trip, although that wrapped up on Sunday and they will have had 3 full days to get back into their home routine.