For the seventh time this season the Canadiens avoided losing two games in a row, while the thirteenth place Senators lost their 11th game of the season.
Mike Komisarek opened the scoring while the Canadiens were killing off their third consecutive penalty. Komisarek insured the puck got out of the Canadiens zone and immediately passed the puck to Tomas Plekanec who carried the puck into the Senators zone and fed a perfect pass back to Komisarek who scored his second short handed goal of the season. The Canadiens would relinquish the lead with a little less than 2 minutes remaining in the first period. Andrej Meszaros one-timed a slap shot that was deflected by Denis Hamel passed Cristobal Huet.
Huet made 16 first period saves and was the Canadiens best penalty killer in order to hold his team in a 1-1 tie. The Senators controlled most of the period and really took the body the body to the Canadiens early recording 6 hits in the opening 3 minutes.
The second period was played very cautiously by both teams and featured just a single goal. Alexander Perezhogin who won puck battles all night long cut in form the half boards and fired a shot on net; it was deflected by former Senator Radek Bonk for his 3rd goal of the season.
It was not until the beginning of the third period that the Canadiens had some quality puck possession in the Senators zone and it paid off. Anton Volchenkov and Dean Mcammond took penalty’s less than 2 minutes apart and the Guillaume Latendresse scored early into both of the man advantages. Latendresse can thank Saku Koivu and Andrei Markov for his first goal as he was set up all alone in the slot with Gerber out of position but his second goal was a beautiful between the legs deflection beating Gerber stick side.
With a 4-1 lead and the game in its final 15 minutes the game appeared to be over. But Janne Niinimaa opened the gate to the Senators for a come back taking his 2nd and 3rd minor penalties at the same time, the first for hooking and the second for arguing the call. Patrick Eves scored a beautiful goal to cut the lead to a single goal. Less than five minutes later Radek Bonk was whistled for hooking and for the second consecutive time the Senators would convert on the power play. This time it was Antoine Vermette sliding the puck passed Huet during a mad crease scramble.
With it now a one goal game the Senators started to really press, until Joe Corvo sent a weak pass up the boards that was intercepted by Mike Johnson. Johnson carried the puck over the blue line and placed his slap shot into the top corner over Gerber’s glove providing the Canadiens once again with a two goal lead.
Alex Kovalev would go on to add an empty net goal.
Three Stars
1. Cristobal Huet- made 36 saves 16 of which were in the first period. He made many big stops to keep the game close until the Canadiens were able to create some offence.
2. Guillaume Latendresse- had his first multi point game in the NHL. Scoring two goal’s in 31 seconds, the second of which proved to be the winning goal.
3. Daniel Alfredsson. He had two assists and logged over 25 minutes but was unable to tickle the twine in his 5 shots on goal.
Honorable mention to Alexander Perezhogin who brought offence back to the 3rd line and was just amazing in the defensive zone and his puck pursuit was also remarkable.
Fun Facts
1. Mike Komisarek who scored 2 goals in his first 149 games has doubled his career total in his last 5 games, and shockingly both of the goals have been shorthanded.
2. For the first time in both of their careers Mike Komisarek and Andrei Markov both had a +4 rating in a regular season game. Markov once replicated the stat in a 2004 playoff game against the Bruins.
3. Thru just 17 games this season the Senators have lost more games than they did in the entire first half of last season.
4 Riddle me this Janne Niinimaa gets a 2 minute penalty for hesitating before heading to the penalty box, but earlier in the game Brian McGrattan wrestles and fights with a linesman and only received a ten minutes misconduct but no minor for unsportsmanlike conduct.