Ottawa, Ontario: Craig Anderson and the Ottawa Senators are happy to be home.
Anderson made 27 saves to stop his seven-game losing streak and Ottawa snapped their five-game skid on Wednesday night with a 3-2 win over the New York Rangers.
“I think, when that final buzzer went, there was a sigh from a lot of people, fans included,” Senators forward Zack Smith said. “It was a good feeling. They’re a good team over there with a good goaltender, so it was a big confidence boost for us.”
Bobby Ryan, Cody Ceci and Smith scored for the Senators (10-13-7), who returned from a seven-game road trip and improved to 2-10-2 in their past 14 overall.
It was only their second victory in regulation since November 11, which was the last time Anderson had won.
“Probably not enough traffic,” New York defenceman Ryan McDonagh lamented. “We had a lot of shots but he saw a lot of them, he played really well.”
Michael Grabner and Pavel Buchnevich scored for the Rangers (16-12-3), who dropped to 4-7-0 on the road. Henrik Lundqvist had 27 saves, becoming the 15th goalie in NHL history to reach 20,000 for his career.
“Their first two goals, we didn’t make the plays through the neutral zone and they came back to make us pay, and there’s no doubt that early goal in the third really hurt us,” New York coach Alain Vigneault said.
“It’s a tough league. Every game is different. Tonight we had, I felt, a real strong game plan. [But] we weren’t able to make them pay for their mistakes.”
Ottawa, who eliminated the Rangers in the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs last season, were coming off a 3-2 loss at last-place Buffalo on Tuesday night.
“It feels good to win,” Anderson said. “After what we went through I think coming home and putting on the effort we did and getting the results we wanted, it’s a good feeling in here.”
Ottawa regained the lead late in the second after Matt Duchene showed some great patience before finding Ceci wide open for his second goal in two games.
