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7:00 P.M.: North Of The Border, Penguins Will Look To Finish Sens Again
Ottawa (Sports Network) - The Ottawa Senators will try to stave off elimination once again when they host the Pittsburgh Penguins for Game 6 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinals at Scotiabank Place.
Trailing the best-of-seven series by three games to one, the fifth-seeded Senators came through with their backs against the wall in Game 5. Ottawa posted a triple-overtime victory Thursday night in Pittsburgh to cut its series deficit to 3-2.
Meanwhile, the fourth-seeded Penguins will try to repeat the success it had in Ottawa earlier in the series to end the set tonight. The defending Stanley Cup champions are 2-0 on the road in this series, taking Games 3 and 4 by a combined 11-6 margin.
Ottawa was 26-11-4 as the host during the regular season, while the Pens had a solid 22-16-3 road record. If necessary, Game 7 of this series is set for Tuesday in Pittsburgh.
The Senators have never come back from 3-1 to win a series. The only time Pittsburgh has ever coughed up a three games to one edge was against the New York Islanders in 1975, when the Penguins surrendered a 3-0 series lead.
Matt Carkner was the hero in Thursday's season-saving victory for Ottawa as he scored the game-winning goal 7:06 into the third overtime of what was the longest contest so far in this year's playoffs.
Carkner’s slapper from the right point beat traffic in front and found the back of the net to force tonight’s Game 6 on home ice.
In the first playoff start of his career, Pascal Leclaire set a Senators playoff record with 56 saves. The netminder made a total of 17 saves in the overtime periods to cut the Penguins' lead in the series to 3-2. Leclaire has taken over the starting role from Brian Elliott, who had an awful 4.14 goals against average and .853 save percentage while staring Games 1-4.
Mike Fisher had a goal and an assist for Ottawa, which got a goal apiece from Jarkko Ruutu and Peter Regin.
“I thought the guys showed a lot of character,” Senators coach Cory Clouston said. “I thought the last half of the second and first half of the third we kind of sat back and it was almost like we were waiting for something bad to happen. It wasn’t until they went ahead that we started to just play our game.”
Sidney Crosby was the star once again for Pittsburgh, scoring a goal and dishing out an assist. He now has 14 points (5 goals, 9 assists) in the series and leads all NHL players in playoff scoring. Kris Letang and Chris Kunitz also lit the lamp in defeat.
Marc-Andre Fleury turned aside 40-of-44 shots for the defending Stanley Cup champion Penguins, who had rattled off three straight victories after dropping the opener of this best-of-seven series.
“If you keep doing the right things you’ll get rewarded. If we do that we’ll get the result we want,” Crosby said.
At 107 minutes, 6 seconds it was the second-longest playoff game in the history of Mellon Arena, which will be replaced by Consol Energy Center at the start of next season.
Pittsburgh, which beat Detroit in seven games last spring to win the Cup, is trying to become the first team to win back-to-back Stanley Cup titles since the Red Wings pulled off the repeat in 1997 and '98.
The Senators and Penguins split four games during an up-and-down season series. Pittsburgh outscored the Senators, 12-3, in its two victories while Ottawa had a combined 10-3 edge in goals in its wins.
These clubs never met in the playoffs prior to 2007, but this marks the third time in four seasons that the Pens and Sens are facing off in the postseason. Ottawa ousted the Penguins in five games during the opening round of the playoffs in 2007, but Pittsburgh exacted revenge with a sweep in the conference quarterfinals the following spring.
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