Senators beat Maple Leafs in 1st shootout of NHL season
TORONTO (AP) The first shootout of the NHL season was a big one for Craig Anderson and the Ottawa Senators.
Anderson made seven of his 37 saves in overtime and Mike Hoffman had the decisive goal in the tiebreaker, sending Ottawa to a 5-4 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday night.
Kyle Turris, Alex Chiasson, Milan Michalek and Mark Stone scored in regulation for the Senators, who led 3-0 early in the second period. Reigning Norris Trophy winner Erik Karlsson had three assists.
''At this point, we just won the game, so we're happy,'' Anderson said. ''You just dig down deep ... and you just find a way.''
The NHL moved to a 3-on-3 overtime for this season to cut back on shootouts, and the Senators and Maple Leafs played the first tiebreaker in the league's 19th game.
Pierre-Alexandre Parenteau scored for Toronto in the first round of the shootout, but Tyler Bozak and Joffrey Lupul were unsuccessful. Bobby Ryan tied it at 1 in the second round before Hoffman lifted Ottawa to the win.
''We just find a way to kind of lose our intensity, lose our forecheck and back off a bit,'' said Turris, who scored the first of three power-play goals for Ottawa in the second period. ''We squeaked out a win last game, we squeaked out a win tonight. It's something we've got to all learn and find a way to fix.''
Lupul, Bozak, Peter Holland and Daniel Winnik scored in regulation for Toronto, and James Reimer made 29 saves.
After the Leafs dominated a scoreless first period, Turris put the Senators in front 46 seconds into the second. As four Toronto penalty killers converged on the boards, Karlsson found a wide-open Turris in the slot for his third goal of the season in his 400th NHL game.
Ottawa quickly added two more power-play goals. Chiasson left the penalty box to score on a breakaway at 3:38 of the second, and Michalek corralled a rebound of a shot by Karlsson and beat Reimer in front at 4:56.
With Winnik pressuring, Ottawa defenseman Patrick Wiercioch turned the puck over right to Lupul at 7:05, and he scored the Leafs' first even-strength goal of the season.
Bozak trimmed Ottawa's lead to 3-2 when he made the most of a perfect stretch pass up the middle from captain Dion Phaneuf at 14:33 of the second.
''What I like, we have a tendency when things go bad we seem to feel bad, we seem to be fragile, we don't just keep playing,'' Toronto coach Mike Babcock said. ''Tonight we kept playing.''
After Holland tied it with some nifty stick work in front on the power play 3:18 into the third, Stone deflected Hoffman's shot past Reimer at 8:59 to restore Ottawa's lead.
But the Leafs weren't done, with Winnik scoring at 16:21. Referee Kevin Pollack waved it off when it first happened, but the situation room looked at it, asked for the horn to blow to stop play and ruled the puck went in.
NOTES: Roman Polak and Michael Grabner made their Leafs debuts, replacing Scott Harrington and Shawn Matthias. The team says Matthias is day to day with a shoulder injury. ... Shane Prince and Chris Wideman were healthy scratches for Ottawa.