He has excelled, however, in the postseason, now with five key goals and six assists. “That’s all I’m trying to do”. It’s a message he repeated before, during and after Game 1.
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“No one’s picking us for sure”, Ottawa forward Clarke MacArthur said.
Crosby only has three games this playoff season in which he didn’t register a point – including the Game 3 loss to Washington in which he suffered a concussion early in the first period.
With the opportunistic Senators content to sit back, they barely tested Marc-Andre Fleury with just 22 shots.
It’s safe to say the Senators executed their defensive plan nearly perfectly against the Penguins in Game 1.
The Senators last beat the Penguins in the playoffs in 2007.
The Penguins had every reason to be confident.
It was Ottawa that scored first.
Ottawa Senators head coach Guy Boucher looks up at the display board during the first period of Game 2 of the Eastern Conference final in the NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoffs against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Monday, May 15, 2017, in Pittsburgh. “This is the team that beat the No. 1 team in the league”.
“We didn’t do any extraordinary things”, Boucher said.
It’s hard to state just how incredible of an individual effort Ryan had on his game-winner, so we’ll just show you.
If the first 10 minutes are pivotal, the Senators were able to survive it. We got 35 shots and we outshot them even though they got a lot of power plays.
That goal put Pageau into second all-time in playoff goals behind the 14 that Daniel Alfredsson tallied since the club went to the Stanley Cup final in 2007.
The goal allowed the Senators to relax after their good fortune in seeing – and hearing – the Penguins ring a pair of shots off the posts in the opening minutes.
“I knew right off the bat when we took a couple of penalties we had to be on our game”, Anderson said.
Unlike the Penguins, the Senators chose not to skate Sunday. He took a attractive no-look backhand pass from Ryan in the slot and Pageau fired it by Fleury on the glove side at 14:32 to silence the crowd. Like people here have said, Ottawa’s system changed and Sullivan didn’t seem ready for it.
Before his second coming performance in the postseason, Ryan failed to impress during the regular season.
Even the most unsafe offenses get hemmed in their own zone, so it will be interesting to see if the Senators go on the attack more in Ottawa.
Up next: The series shifts to Ottawa for two games, starting with Game 3 at 8 p.m. on Wednesday. Dull, but often effective, hockey.
Coach Mike Sullivan, however, refused to let the Penguins stew too much about falling into the traps they knew to avoid. So the speed is going to have to start there. “Those guys can play any game that they need to play to have success”. He smothered point shots, deflected deflections and froze scrambles. Rather, the Sens just outnumbered the Pens when they tried to gain the attacking zone, with three players generally back and a fourth applying pressure, and were quick to transition the puck, with the increased support that Colin mentioned.
The Penguins managed just 17 shots during five-on-five play while the Senators had 32.
Ottawa goaltender Craig Anderson also was strong, stopping 28 of 29 Pittsburgh shots.
Finally, however, the Penguins caught a break.
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“It was scary. It wasn’t fun to live”, Boucher said of the pushback his team faced in the first two rounds. “Then we’ve got to get guys that are going and try to compete for rebounds and next-play opportunities”. They are performing well in both zones, and have the players to contribute at both ends.
