Vancouver Canucks conquers Ottawa Senators in a tough battle 4-2 for a sixth consecutive win
Always expect the unexpected!
Most people were of the view that Vancouver Canucks would dominate in its home town at the sold-out Rogers Arena and Senators wouldn’t even notice what went on. But it was exactly the opposite, Vancouver had to fight for the win and Senators didn’t go out
of its municipal easily. If you look at the stats, than Ottawa is one of the lowest ranking teams in the NHL, but hockey isn’t about that, anything can happen at any time, that’s precisely what we observed Tuesday night when the leading Canucks struggled to
get to the finish line by 4-2 over the crippling Senators.
This is Canucks’ sixth straight win, making it the highest in the league.
Roberto Luongo made a dramatic 31 saves, letting 2 bright up the red light, it was one of those nights where we expected another shutout from him, but Senators seemed to have been trying this time.
Ottawa is slowly and steadily improving itself but probably not looking into securing a playoff spot or anything this season as it has a fallen into the 14th position in the Eastern Conference, just coming at number 3 in the NHL, above New York
Islanders and Edmonton Oilers.
"We've had enough close calls lately", said Senators’ Spezza, coming back after 15 games, scoring one and picking up an assist closing in on Canucks. "We're pretty disappointed. We've just got to figure out what we did well the second half of the game and
bring that to our next game".
Ottawa Senators has lost 10 straight games, only having one victory in its last 17 showdowns and not having won in Vancouver since 2004 frustrates it even more.
Great night for Mikael Samuelsson
Samuelsson showed an exhilarating performance last night by scoring two goals, one of them being the winning shot.
Ryan Kesler shot the puck to the right wing deflecting it to the net in the start of the second period making it 3-0 for the British Colombians.
It was a favour returned by Kesler, who assisted by Samuelsson in the first, made it 31 goals this season.
It was all roars for Vancouver at the start of the second, being 3-0, five minutes in, but then Senators came back and made it 3-2 within two minutes, shocking the crowd of over 18,000 fans.
Third period up for grabbing
It was anyone’s game in the final 20 minutes, either Senators could tie it or take the lead like it did by scoring two back-to-back shots in the previous period, or Canucks could seal its fate.
However, all hopes were lost when Man of the Match, Samuelsson, threw one into the empty net with nearly thirty seconds to go.
"Somehow, eventually, these are going to go in", a once frustrated but now calm Senators’ coach, Cory Clouston, said. "I thought we played well. Our guys didn't quit. They didn't lay down. Eventually, those opportunities have to go in. I don't understand
how we can keep -- game in and game out -- miss our chances".
Keith Ballard out
Victory saw injury for Keith Ballard, the defenseman for Canucks, who will now miss 3 to 4 weeks of game-play due to a knee sprain revealed by an MRI scan.
He went out early in the game when his leg became pinned under his body due to a backward fall when hit by a Senators’ forward.
As the playoffs are closing in, Vancouver will need everyone and everything to go the way it wants it to if it has ambitions of winning the Stanley Cup this season.
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