OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — The Ottawa Senators needed someone to step up, and Mark Stone delivered.
Stone had two goals and three assists, Colin White scored twice and the Senators beat the New Jersey Devils 7-3 on Tuesday night in their first game since the emergence of an embarrassing viral video.
The clip showed seven players during an Uber ride in Phoenix last month insulting the team and assistant coach Martin Raymond. Earlier in the day, Stone dismissed the latest drama to the Senators season as a "hiccup" and said the team is already repairing the frayed relationship between players and coaches that was laid bare in the video.
"I think we've lost six out of seven games so we needed a win. We haven't been playing our best hockey so maybe this can help this team move forward," Stone said.
Matt Duchene, one of the players in the video, apologized after the game and said it was impressive the way the team responded.
"Once we got that first (goal), I thought we did a good job pushing back and imposing our game on them," Duchene said. "We kept the hammer down and we didn't change our game, even when it was close, and that's the type of hockey that we need to play."
Thomas Chabot, Ryan Dzingel and Magnus Paajarvi had the other Senators (6-6-3) goals. Craig Anderson made 30 saves before he was replaced by Mike McKenna (six saves) for the final five minutes. Chabot also had two assists while Matt Duchene had three.
Taylor Hall, Kyle Palmieri and Travis Zajac scored for the Devils (6-6-1), who haven't won consecutive games since starting the season with four straight wins. New Jersey led 2-0 before Ottawa blew it open in the second period.
"Those first 10 minutes we got rewarded for what we wanted to do. We were playing with speed, we were playing a north-south game and we were getting rewarded. You'd think it would be easier that way to just stick with it," Devils captain Andy Greene said. "All of a sudden we were moving east-west, we stopped moving our feet and that seems to be the problem. The way we were playing you'd think we'd stick with a north-south game."
Cory Schneider started in goal for the Devils but was replaced by Keith Kinkaid in the second period after allowing four goals on 22 shots. Kinkaid turned aside 17 shots in relief.
Dzingel gave the Senators a 6-2 lead at 10:11 of the third before Zajac made it 6-3 at 14:13. Paarjarvi got his first point of the season with an empty-net goal at 18:01. Ottawa had been outscored 21-12 in third periods prior to Tuesday.
NOTES: Erik Burgdoerfer and Mark Borowiecki were scratches for the Senators while Kurtis Gabriel, Egor Yakovlev and Eddie Jack were scratches for the Devils. ... Stone's first-period goal was the 100th of his career
UP NEXT
Devils: Play at Toronto on Friday night.
Senators: Host Vegas on Thursday night.
