Jake Sanderson scored at 17:42 of overtime for the Ottawa Senators, who avoided elimination with a 4-3 win in Game 4 of their first-round series against the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday.
Fresh off the bench, Sanderson kept the puck in at the left point and fired a wrist shot that beat Anthony Stolarz on the far side.
“Honestly, just came off the bench and saw the puck was about to get out of the zone so I just hurried,” Sanderson said. “A guy was on me so I just threw it to the net and there was traffic and he didn’t see it.”
Sanderson also had an assist, and Linus Ullmark made 31 saves for the Senators, who trail the Eastern Conference best-of-seven series 3-1.
“Anyone who thinks this is going to be easy, it’s not,” Senators coach Travis Green said. “It’s going to be hard. Could we be sitting here in a different position? Yeah, we could be. Our guys know that, but they’re not going to go away. You know what, go win another game and see what happens.”
John Tavares, Matthew Knies and Oliver Ekman-Larsson scored for the Maple Leafs. Stolarz made 17 saves.
“I think our special teams could have been a little bit better,” Knies said. “In overtime it’s going to be a bounce, a dirty goal, and that went their way tonight.”
David Perron put Ottawa ahead 3-2 at 7:32 of the third period. Adam Gaudette collected a rebound in the left circle and fed it to Artem Zub, who sent it to Perron on the doorstep for the tap-in.
Ekman-Larsson tied it 3-3 at 14:31. William Nylander held the puck in the left circle before spotting Ekman-Larsson uncovered in the right circle, where the defenseman snapped it under Ullmark’s left arm.
Tim Stutzle scored on the power play to give the Senators a 1-0 lead at 9:03 of the first period, taking a feed from Sanderson in the right circle for a one-timer that beat Stolarz high glove side.
Shane Pinto doubled the Senators’ advantage with a short-handed tally at 14:11. Pinto caught up to a loose puck just inside the Toronto blue line and broke in for a wrist shot on Stolarz, who thought he had it, but the puck slipped through the five-hole to make it 2-0.
“I thought our team played extremely hard, did a lot of great things,” Toronto coach Craig Berube said. “We gave up four shots in two periods. I thought we defended hard, played hard. Bounces go one way or another. I’m not too concerned about it. I thought our team was ready to go. Did a lot of good things tonight, didn’t work out.”
Tavares cut the deficit to 2-1 at 19:05. Nylander took a pass from Chris Tanev at the point and fired it toward the net, where Tavares, on the doorstep, tipped it blocker side past Ullmark.
Knies converted on a delayed penalty to pull the Maple Leafs even at 10:12 of the second period. Mitch Marner deflected a puck out of the Toronto zone and Knies collected it for a breakaway, getting around Zub and roofing a wrist shot into the top left corner.
“Going up two and then they come back and tie it, then they tie it late in the third,” Ottawa’s Brady Tkachuk said. “It’s easy to crack under pressure, especially the situation that we’re in and the road that we’re in, but I think it shows the resilience, the care, the character in this room that we’ll do whatever it takes to win.”
–Field Level Media
