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Ray Emery Plays a Wild Game Noah Borer (HV) Ottawa took their A game to Scotiabank Place on Monday night as they hosted the Division leading
Minnesota Wild. Wild coach Jacques Lemaire usually has his team ready for anything, but they were no match
for the surging Senators in the first period.
The game started off with the Senators flying out of the gates. Right off the bat Dany Heatley
went in on a breakaway. He didn't score but he did smash his forehead into the crossbar.
It left the sens fans gasping and holding their breath. Dany didn’t miss a shift however,
but he did lose a little bit of blood with a large gash on the upper part of his forehead.
The next scoring chance Ottawa capitilized on. Andrej Mezsaroz scored his 3rd goal of the
season at 5:04 to get Ottawa up on the scoreboard. Then Chris Kelly (6:12) scored on a breakaway and before
the crowd had a chance to calm down
Chris Neil scored a goal at 14:06 to make it 3-0 going into the 2nd period. The Senators outshot the
Wild 17-8. Then in the second period Daniel Alfredsson scored on a bullet shot (7:56) just inside the goal post.
Just over a minute later Pascal Dupuis (9:08) of the Minnesota Wild brought them back to life when he was
standing at the right place at the right time to toss in his 3rd of the season. In the second period
a glass pane broke near the ice stopping play for several minutes. When play resumed
the momentum seemed to shift a little bit for the Wild. Luckily, for the Ottawa
Senators Ray Emery was on his A game again, making 42 saves, on a struggling Wild team.
Just past the mid-way point of the 3rd period at 10:46, Brian Roloson made no mistake by scoring on a penalty shot after
Mike Fisher closed his hand on the puck in the crease. Then Peter Shaefer (18:31) put the icing on the cake
to make it a 5-2 game. With 12 seconds remaining in the game Mikko Koivo decided to try and make it a game
by scoring his 5th of the season. But for the Wild it was too late. The Senators pulled away and won it 5-3, in an
exciting end-to-end, fast-paced game. Ray Emery was just outstanding and did not show any ill effect of his injured wrist,
although he is using Martin Gerber's glove for more padding until his special ordered one comes in.
Ottawa went 2/3 on the power play while Minnesota was 1/5. The 18,094 fans did
not leave disappointed at the end of the game. They had seen a great game. “Ray has been playing really well as we know, and he shut the door” said Brian Murray. Also a huge reason for the Ottawa success this week has been their secondary scoring. Murray makes a joke during his interview and said “is that primary scoring or secondary scoring”. He was mostly talking about Chris Neil. Ray Emery said after the game “some of those games you just got to hang on, and take advantage. That’s what we did tonight.” he also said “I just wanna help the boys win, cause we gotta good team, they just need solid goaltending”.
NOTE- Jason Spezza had a milestone night, playing his 200th career game. Daniel Alfredsson left the game with leg injury. Murray said he would be fine.
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