NEW YORK \u2014 In keeping pace in a tight race for the final playoff spots in the Eastern Conference, the Ottawa Senators paid a significant cost.<\/p>\n
Already depleted off some of their top defenseman, including Olympian Jake Sanderson, they lost two more in their 2-1 win over the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Monday night; both star blueliner Thomas Chabot and former first-rounder Lassi Thomson were done for the night before the game had even reached the halfway point.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019ll both be out for a while, that\u2019s about all I can say about it right now,\u201d Senators head coach Travis Green told reporters after the game.<\/p>\n
Fortunately for his team, at least on Monday night, it didn\u2019t seem to matter much given the anemic Blueshirts historically bad showing in which they recorded just nine shots on goal, tying a franchise record for fewest ever recorded in a game.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust a great team effort,\u201d Green said. \u201cWith two defensemen going down, guys had to step up and play a lot more minutes than they\u2019re used to, forwards were helping them out. It was just a real good team win.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was, which is even more remarkable given the circumstances, the fewest shots on goal allowed in franchise history.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do look at the clock, but not for the shots,\u201d defenseman Jordan Spence said after the game.\u00a0 \u201cBut, obviously after the game, we saw the shots and I think we\u2019ve been kind of doing that the past couple of games. We just have to stick with our gameplan every game.\u00a0 If we slack, that\u2019s when teams can score a few goals and we lose. We\u2019ve got to keep that going, and we\u2019ve got a big one (Tuesday), so we\u2019re focused on that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shane Pinto and Warren Foegele scored the goals in a win that improved them to 14-3-2 in their last 19 games and got them to within two points of the New York Islanders for the final wild card spot in the East. While, as Spence said, the focus shifted almost immediately to a critical game against the Detroit Red Wings that was set for Tuesday night, backup goaltender James Reimer, who only had to make eight saves in the win, took time to reflect on the bizarre night in Manhattan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the main thing in a game like this is you just trust your foundation and trust your game,\u201d he said. \u201cThese games are a lot harder than a 30 or 40 shot-night.\u00a0 You\u2019re not in a rhythm, you\u2019re not feeling it, it\u2019s just not happening, so you\u2019ve got to trust it and trust that your body knows what it has to do when the time comes.\u00a0 It\u2019s a difficult game as a goalie to play mentally, but you just trust it.\u00a0 The boys \u2014 I can\u2019t say enough after going down to four defensemen \u2014 the stones they played with was impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK \u2014 In keeping pace in a tight race for the final playoff spots in the Eastern…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520506,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5111],"tags":[5,3328,35,5190,5193,4,36,43,5366],"class_list":{"0":"post-520505","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-rangers","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-new-york","10":"tag-new-york-rangers","11":"tag-newyork","12":"tag-newyorkrangers","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-rangers","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-top-stories-trt"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116285390878230349","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520506"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}