Anaheim 3, Ottawa 2 Hitting, scoring, goaltending, opportunities, missed opportunities, and of course luck. These are the some of the key components that make up a hockey game. And Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals didn’t disappoint.
The Ottawa Senators and the Anaheim Ducks squared off in the first matchup of the teams this season, and the Ducks’ Travis Moen, along with Rob Niedermayer and Samuel Pahlsson, held Ottawa’s top line of Daniel Alfredsson, Jason Spezza and Dany Heatley to two assists and handed the Senators their first series-opening loss in these playoffs, 3-2. The team that has won Game 1 has won the Stanley Cup 77.6% of the time, and the team with home-ice advantage has won the Cup the last eight seasons.
“I think that’s what we had to do tonight,” Ducks captain Scott Niedermayer said. “That’s what we look at. There was one game to win tonight and that was this one.”
All the focus before the series seemed to be on how well the Ducks would handle the Senators’ explosive trio of Alfredsson, Spezza and Heatley, whom no one else has been able to stop. Maybe the focus needs to be on the Ducks’ unassuming checking line of Moen, Pahlsson and Niedermayer. They’ve combined to score 11 goals in this postseason. Including the game winner of this one. Niedermayer made the play happen when he picked up his brother’s dump pass behind the Senators’ net and made a move on Spezza to keep possession before backhanding the puck out to Moen sitting in the slot. Moen wasted no time and snapped a shot past Ray Emery with 2:51 left in the third. But it wasn’t over yet.
With the Senators already having pulled Emery for an extra attacker, Ducks defenseman Chris Pronger took a hooking penalty with 43.2 seconds left and Ottawa suddenly had a six-on-four advantage. As they have throughout the postseason, the Ducks pulled themselves out of the fire. Jean-Sebastien Giguere made an impressive save on Alfredsson sitting on his doorstep in the final seconds, the last of 18 he made on the night.
It looked like it was going to be a long night for Giguere, as the Senators’ Mike Fisher scored a power play goal just 1:38 into the game. “I thought we came out pretty good the first 10 minutes,” Heatley said. “After a layoff, you can’t duplicate game situations. I don’t think we’re using it as an excuse, I just don’t think we played up to our capabilities.” Ottawa went without a shot from the 5:36 mark of the first until the end of the period and finished with three. “It’s not so much what they did, it’s what we didn’t do as a line,” Spezza said. “We didn’t have as much jump.” The Ducks’ Andy McDonald tied the score with a goal at 10:55.
Ottawa goalie Ray Emery and the rest of the Senators showed a bit of rust in the first period following an eight-day layoff. After leaving juicy rebounds and looking a bit unsteady in his crease, Emery bounced back in the second period, stopping all 10 Anaheim shots, including one he grabbed out of the air as it threatened to bound past him. Emery was not to blame for the loss, who was by far the best player on his team in stopping 29 of 32 shots.
Wade Redden broke a 1-1 tie in the middle frame, making up for losing the puck in the opening period that led to McDonald’s tying goal, scoring on another power play. “We took some penalties we didn’t want to take,” Ducks defenseman Sean O’Donnell said. “We got ourselves into trouble with the five-on-three. But we found a way to get it out and we did come back.” But Ottawa failed to capitalize on the five-on-three advantage for 1:35 in the second period with a chance for a 3-1 lead.
Playing off the energy the fourth line of Brad May, Todd Marchant and Shawn Thornton provided early, the other Ducks forwards picked up the pace in the fateful third. Ryan Getzlaf continued his star turn, putting in his sixth goal of the playoffs with a nifty backhander through Emery’s legs at the 5:44 mark to tie it at 2-2. Getzlaf has three goals in his last four games.
All that was left was for the checking line of Moen, Pahlsson and Niedermayer to do their magic.
