Ottawa Senators defeat New York Rangers 4-1
Mats Zuccarello and Artem Anisimov scored within the space of 12 seconds in the second period to lead the New York Rangers to a 4-1 win over the Ottawa Senators at Scotiabank Place on Friday night.
Vinny Prospal and Derek Stepan each also scored a goal for New York, who ended a three-game skid. The National Hockey League (NHL) leader with eight shutouts, Henrik Lundqvist turned aside 28-of-29 shots in the victory.
With this victory, the Rangers moved into seventh spot in the Eastern Conference. They sit one point above the Carolina Hurricanes and five points behind the sixth-placed Montreal Canadiens.
New York centerman Brandon Dubinsky said after the game, “We’re in a position where we control our own fate, we control our own destiny and the way we play and the points that we get.”
Sergei Gonchar notched the lone goal for Ottawa, who have dropped two of their last three games. Craig Anderson surrendered all four goals on 27 shot in the loss.
Anderson was not disappointed despite the defeat. He said "It's the law of averages; you're going to have some good games and some bad games. Going forward, we have to put this one behind us and get back on the horse."
Prospal got the scoring started just after the midway point of the first frame, when he gathered the puck in the right corner and curled around to the right face-off circle, where he fired a low shot that beat the Senators net-minder in the 11th
minute.
The Rangers then doubled their advantage in the seventh minute of the middle stanza when Zuccarello whacked in a rebound off Stepan’s shot. Twelve seconds later New York extended their lead to 3-0 when Anisimov sunk a back-hander from in close to put the
game out of reach.
Stepan provided Rangers’ fourth goal of the game in the third minute of the final frame. Gonchar then got the Senators on the board in the fifth minute of the third period when he notched a power-play goal to spoil Lundqvist's shutout bid.
Rangers Head Coach John Tortorella was satisfied with his side’s performance. He said after the game, “We’re still in the playoffs, we’re still right in the middle of it. It’s just trying to gather ourselves and stay with one another, stay within our structure,
and I thought for the most part we did a pretty good job tonight.”
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