Jean-Pierre Allard of Smarting Senators will share his thoughts on Ottawa's hockey team at various points throughout the playoffs. Here are his thoughts following the Sens' 4-2 win over the Penguins in Game 3.
The Senators looked like they were playing tentatively in the first period, undoubtedly still reeling from blowing a 3-2 third-period lead in Game 2. As a result, they were behind 1-0 for most of the period, after Gary Roberts scored in the first minute of the game, when with 1:56 minutes left, they scored a dirty goal, courtesy of Dean McAmmond.
Now, that was important, in more ways than one, as Ottawa is not known for scoring those types of goals and to score them at the end of a period to tie things up, no less, usually has the effect of deflating the other team's bubble.
Ottawa slowly took over the game and mainly dictated the tempo in the second where they scored three unanswered goals, including two from captain Daniel Alfredsson after Mike Comrie had put Ottawa ahead earlier, for a 4-1 lead after 40 minutes.
Scary moment though near the middle of the period when Colby Armstrong tried something different than running Ray Emery when he caught Senators right-wing Patrick Eaves with his head down as he was circling the net. Armstrong hit him with a perfectly legal shoulder check that sent him to the infirmary, on a stretcher no less. The initial diagnosis is that Eaves suffered a concussion.
That play seemed to also help slow down the young Pens and it wasn't until there was five minutes left in the contest that Pittsburgh showed some life when Evgeni Malkin fed Sidney Crosby a beautiful cross-ice pass that the kid redirected, while sliding on his left side, past a helpless Emery. Though there were a few tense moments after that, including the nagging fear that Emery was about to suffer another third period meltdown, Ottawa was not to be denied.
In the end, it was a huge win for the Senators who, once again, have the opportunity to deliver a knock-out punch on Tuesday and take a 3-1 series lead.
The Senators outshot the Penguins 25-19 and have now outshot them a ridiculous 99-66 over three games. They also outhit them 29-22 and won 35 of 62 face offs. Not too shabby if you consider all of this has been accomplished with their top scorer Dany Heatley being virtually invisible thus far, despite his one goal and two helpers.
As for the Pens, they shouldn't hang their heads but if this was high school, they would have failed eight of nine periods so far and will need all of its players, not just Sid and Gary, to step it up considerably in the next game if they don't want to face the daunting task of going back to Ottawa on Thursday night facing a quick elimination.
Jean-Pierre Allard is a freelance writer who has been following the Expos/Senators for MVN since 2004. In addition, he has covered the Ottawa Senators since 2004-05 on MVN and now will chronicle the 2007 Ottawa Lynx, the Philadelphia Phillies' Triple-A team.
His work has also been published in the Washington Times, Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Sun, Toronto Sun, Calgary Herald, Vancouver Province and Ottawa City Woman Magazine. As a sports historian, he has also appeared on Global TV, CBC radio and SRC radio.
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The Penguins are fortunate not to be down 3-0 in this series. Ottawa is clearly the superior team, with far superior depth. That depth difference is most glaring on the blueline, where the Penguins simply don't have six quality NHL defencemen to dress each night. In contrast, Ottawa's seventh defenceman, Schubert, would be a top four guy instantly in Pittsburgh.
I just can't see this series going seven -- if Ottawa doesn't wrap it up in five, then they'll do it in six.
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