VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) — Andrei Kuzmenko scored twice and the Vancouver Canucks beat the Ottawa Senators 5-2 on Saturday night for their season-high fourth straight victory.
J.T. Miller, Nils Aman and Sheldon Dries also scored for Vancouver, and Thatcher Demko made 18 saves.
“We can definitely feel it in the room. I think there’s a buy-in that’s going on right now,” Demko said. “That’s just playing the right way. It’s contagious when everyone’s doing it and it looks good.”
Claude Giroux and Nick Holden had third-period goals for Ottawa. Mads Sogaard made 25 saves in the Senators' second straight loss.
“It’s frustrating. I didn’t think we played that bad,” Giroux said. “We did a lot of good things but kind of a weird game, to be honest. You think you’re playing a pretty good and then you’re down 4-0. So definitely frustrating.”
Kuzmenko opened the scoring for Vancouver with 4:45 left in the first period. He also had the final goal of the game, scoring a power-play goal into an empty net with 15 seconds to go for his 32nd goal of the season.
Miller and Aman scored in the second period, with Miller making it 2-0 with a short-handed goal at 4:26 and Aman striking with 9:33 to go.
Dries scored at 6:50 of the third for a 4-0 lead.
Giroux ended Demko's shutout bid with 6:21 to go with his 28th of the season. Holden connected with 4:16 left.
Vancouver allowed only 20 shots.
“It means everybody’s gapping up and the defense are trusting the forwards that they’re backing the defensemen up,” Canucks coach Rick Tocchet said. “It’s a lot of different trust factors. You can’t play this game if you don’t trust your teammates, and that’s something we’ve really worked on the last six weeks is trust.”
UP NEXT
Senators: At Calgary on Sunday night in the fourth of a five-game trip.
Canucks: Host Dallas on Tuesday night to finish a six-game homestand.
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