Vancouver Canucks ease past Ottawa Senators 4-2
Mikael Samuelsson scored twice and had an assist, as the Vancouver Canucks held on for a 4-2 victory against the Ottawa Senators, at Rogers Centre on Tuesday night.
Ryan Kesler and Alex Burrows also found the back of the net for Vancouver, who have won six consecutive play-offs, and extended their lead to four points atop the National Hockey League (NHL) standings over the Philadelphia Flyers.
Roberto Luongo started between the pipes for the Canucks, turning aside 31-of-33 shots to collect his 26th victory of the season. Nick Foligno and Jason Spezza both lit the lamp for Ottawa, who skidded to their 10th straight loss. Brian Elliott was charged
with three goals on 29 shots in the setback.
Burrows opened the scoring for the Canucks to give them a 1-0 lead in the ninth minute of the first period. From the side of the net, Burrows made his way past Mike Fisher and Chris Phillips and blasted a wraparound past Elliott. A minute later, Kesler doubled
Vancouver’s advantage. Only seconds after he rang a shot off the left post, he took a pass from Mason Raymond and fired a wrist shot from the left past Elliott.
That was Vancouver’s fifth shot of the first period. Fortunately for Ottawa, the Canucks did not get another for the rest of the session, but it was demonstrative of the Senators’ bad fortunes. They outshot Vancouver 12-5 and might have been the better team,
but were trailing 2-0.
Ottawa probably deserved some better luck in the middle frame. The Senators were arguably the better side and hit the post twice. However, they still finished the period trailing 2-0. The Canucks pushed their lead to 3-0 on their eighth shot of the game
just two minutes into the second period. The goal was set up by Kesler, who slipped a pass to the top of the crease, where Samuelsson chipped it home.
Three and a half minutes later, the Senators finally got back into the game and cut the deficit to 3-1. Foligno lifted a backhander from the slot to the top shelf over Luongo’s glove. Spezza then pulled another one back for Ottawa to make it a 3-2 game less
than two minutes later, as he jammed in his own rebound from a breakaway.
Ottawa nearly knotted the game on a man advantage later in the period on two occasions, and the period could even have ended with the Senators ahead. However, Sergei Gonchar and Milan Michalek’s shots both hit the post.
The Canucks were unable to score on two consecutive power plays in the final stanza, but finally got some insurance when Samuelsson tallied an empty netter to wrap up the win at 4-2 with 32 seconds to play.
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