Ottawa: Sens-ational Comeback in Game 4







On Tuesday night the Ottawa Senators reminded the league why the team is referred to as the “pesky sens.”


The Ottawa Senators came into Game 4 with a 2-1 series lead over the Canadiens after a 6-1 victory in Game 3. However in Game 4 the Senators were heavily outplayed in most of the first and second  period of the game. Similar to Game 2, the Montreal Canadiens capitalised on two scoring chances just 58 seconds apart, and lead the game 2-0 going into the final period.

However, the “pesky sens” stormed back with 8:05 left in the game after Zibanejad redirected a one timer shot with his skate. The play was briefly under review, but it was determined that there was no kicking motion and was a good goal. This decision added to the controversy surrounding this series as angry Habs fans took to social media.

Clearly no goal. Any other view is simply to defend the refs and the league,” said a Canadiens fan on Facebook.

However, most agree the goal was legal by NHL standards as Zibanejad did not appear to intentionally kick the puck, but rather redirected it into the net.

“If that was a kick, then he has to have the greatest hand eye coordination in the history of the game because the puck deflected off his stick first, and then he "kicked" where he knew the puck would be after the deflection.” said another fan on the NHL website.

The Senators where then able to tie the game with less than 30 seconds remaining in regulation time, however, this goal also drew controversy because some felt the icing call against the Canadiens should have never been called.

Additionally, the Canadiens coach, Michel Therrien,  complained that the faceoff following the icing was on the wrong side of the ice given the previous play, and that this mistake caused him to put the wrong players on the ice given the situation.

“I can’t understand why the faceoff was on the right side,” Therrien said during a postgame interview. “We had the wrong players out there. The faceoff should have been on the left.”

Just 2:31 into the OT period, Senators forward Kyle Turris threw a harmless looking shot towards Habs goaltender Peter Budaj which snuck by his blocker and into the net.


The Senators now lead the series 3-1 and will look to eliminate the Habs on Thursday night in Montreal.


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