Senators, Canadiens enjoy lapse in losing (Feb 03, 2018)
When the Ottawa Senators and the Montreal Canadiens meet at Bell Centre on Sunday afternoon, they will be coming off wins -- something that has not happened often for the teams that sit near the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings.
At the end of the day, somebody is going to have a winning streak.
The Senators will be trying to win their third game in a row. They defeated the Anaheim Ducks 2-1 at home on Thursday and won in a 4-3 shootout in Philadelphia against the Flyers on Saturday.
The Senators haven't won three games in a row since Oct. 10-14 when they swept a road trip against the Vancouver Canucks, Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers.
The Canadiens, who ended a three-game losing streak Saturday with a 5-2 victory over the Ducks at Bell Centre, haven't won two games in a row since early January.
The Canadiens had scored one goal in their previous two games before exploding Saturday, thanks in large part to two keys. They got four goals from defensemen -- Jeff Petry (two), David Schlemko and Joe Morrow -- and did a better job of getting to the front of the net.
That paid off in forward Logan Shaw opening the scoring for the Canadiens against the Ducks after they had been outshot 9-0 to start the game.
They will be trying to continue to put those things into practice against the Senators on Sunday.
"That's how you score," Shaw, who was picked up off waivers from the Ducks on Jan. 15, said. "I'd say more than half the goals in this league are scored with dirty goals in front of the net. It's not always a pretty one, but they all count."
"It's a good feeling to finally get some, I wouldn't say bounces, but create some chances and get goals," Petry said. "You look at (Shaw's) goal is something we talked about going into the game, cycle the puck, get guys in front, and he was rewarded tonight.
"I'll bet that one feels really good for him. It's something we've addressed and it was good to see it pay off."
After Antti Niemi made 43 saves against the Ducks, Carey Price will get the start Sunday in goal against the Senators.
Canadiens top center Jonathan Drouin left the game in the eighth minute of the second period after getting hit with a teammate's shot in the ribs. Canadiens coach Claude Julien said after the game "all tests were positive" and Drouin will be evaluated Sunday.
The Senators will be without top scorer Mark Stone (18 goals, 26 assists in 44 games), who will miss his seventh game Sunday with a leg injury. Winger Bobby Ryan will miss his second game with a hand injury.
Forward Mike Hoffman stepped up with a goal in the sixth round of the shootout to deliver the win Saturday after the Senators gave up a goal with 2.6 seconds left in the third period to allow the Flyers to force overtime. The Senators led 3-1 with seven minutes to go in the second period but couldn't hold the lead.
Senators goaltender Craig Anderson said Saturday's experience hopefully will help Sunday if they wind up in the same situation.
"When we had the puck on our sticks a couple of times, we had time to make a play and we just kind of threw it off our stick feeling the pressure," he told TSN 1200. "That comes with experience, it comes with confidence. With us winning, hopefully that can help us learn from this mistakes and not make them again."
"We didn't handle the pressure well in our zone," Senators coach Guy Boucher said on TSN 1200. "We were stuck in our zone. Turnovers, mainly. We had it, we gave it back to them. We had it again, we gave it back to them, and so it created momentum for them and got us tired."
Boucher said he expects to have his same lineup available for the game against the Canadiens. Rookie forward Colin White got his first NHL point, an assist on Matt Duchene's goal that opened the scoring.
Mike Condon, who was in goal Thursday, will play against the Canadiens.
