Senators 3, Sabres 1
An unlikely hero emerged for the Ottawa Senators on Sunday as the New Year’s Eve hangover didn’t last long.
Belleville Senators call-up Jake Lucchini scored the winning goal — on a power play, no less — in the 3-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres as the Senators shook off their frustrating loss to the Detroit Red Wings a night earlier.
“When it kind of squirted out (to me), you know, if you get a chance to score your first goal, you get pretty excited,” said the 27-year-old Lucchini, who has toiled in the American Hockey League for five seasons before finally receiving a taste of the NHL due to the Senators long list of injuries. “My eyes opened up pretty big. It’s just huge. I’m just so excited, obviously something I’ve dreamed about my whole life. It was unbelievable.”
As a team, it was a solid all-around, bounce-back effort from the Senators against the Sabres, who have been lighting up scoreboards all around the NHL in the past month and stepped onto the Canadian Tire Centre ice riding a six-game winning streak.
The victory once again revived hopes that the Senators can stay afloat in the race for a wild-card spot. The win puts them a single point behind the Sabres, part of the logjam of teams trying to climb the ladder.
Tim Stutzle put bookends on the victory, scoring 47 seconds into the game and into an empty net with 71 seconds remaining, while goaltender Anton Forsberg made 33 stops to register the win. Forsberg caught a break when Tage Thompson rifled a shot off the crossbar with six minutes to go and he robbed Victor Olofsson point blank with two minutes left on the clock.
Zemgus Girgensons netted the Sabres’ goal and former Senators netminder Craig Anderson faced 33 Senators shots in the Sabres’ crease.
Ultimately, though, the night belonged to Lucchini. Stepping in for Mark Kastelic on the second unit of the power play, he pounced on a rebound in front of Anderson for the goal he’ll never forget.
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Lucchini has gradually earned more trust from the coaching staff, looking more comfortable with each passing game. Then came the goal, in his fifth NHL game in his fifth pro season with his third organization, at the tender age of 27.
Undrafted after playing four seasons with Michigan Tech, he has played 201 minor league games in the Senators, Pittsburgh Penguins and Montreal Canadiens organizations. He was traded from Montreal to Ottawa last October for the pricely sum of $1.
He has received some penalty killing time and Smith played a hunch Sunday by giving him a shot with the man advantage, and it paid off handsomely.
“It’s hard to put into words, honestly,” said Lucchini, whose mother, Sandy, was among the crowd of 18,231 at Canadian Tire Centre. “It was so special and with the crowd…there’s so many people…and it was such an exciting game. To have a positive impact like that was important for me.”
Before the Lucchini goal, the Sabres had controlled play for the first part of the period. After finding a seam in the Senators defence, Girgensons broke in all alone before beating Forsberg on a pretty deke to tie the game 1-1.
The Sabres came into the Canadian Tire Centre flying high. Their 4-3 overtime win over the Boston Bruins on Saturday afternoon was their sixth straight, a stretch in which they had outscored their opponents 28-12.
While the Senators have been riding the hot sticks of Alex DeBrincat and Drake Batherson of late — Batherson entered the game on a 13-game point scoring streak — their recent numbers pale compared to the totals piled up by the Sabres’ top line.
Thompson, the NHL’s third star for the month of the December, scored 13 goals and nine assists during his past 11 games. He had six goals and four assists in his previous six games and, on top of that, registered a five-goal game against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Dec. 7.
Alex Tuch, meanwhile, came into Ottawa fresh from a two-goal, two-assist effort against the Bruins. He scored 11 goals and seven assists during 11 games in December.
And then there’s Jeff Skinner, who stepped onto the CTC ice riding a 10-game point streak, a span that saw him score eight goals and 17 assists.
There were several close calls along the way, but the Senators were able to shut them down in what captain Brady Tkachuk said was a vital game following the their New Year’s Eve collapse in Detroit. He says it was a bonus they didn’t have to think too long about the loss to the Red Wings.
“We’re lucky,” said Tkachuk, whose line with Stutzle and Giroux was matched up against the Sabres top trio most of the night. “Back to back (games), you have to flush it and so it definitely would have been worse if you had to sit on that for more than a day. We were ready to go today and (the Sabres) are playing great. A lot of those guys can move the puck and make plays and they have a lot of good players over there, so we had to be at our best tonight to shut them down.”
Forsberg also responded well to his first appearance since losing Dec. 18 to the Minnesota Wild, watching from the bench as Cam Talbot has carried the load.
“I’ve just got to focus on what I’m supposed to do,” he said. “Even if I’m playing or not playing, it’s my job. Like everybody going to work, they come in every day and try to have a good attitude and work on what I know I have to work on.”
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