OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) Matt Duchene had a good feeling after Ottawa slimmed a three-goal deficit down to one. Mike Hoffman helped him finish the job.
Duchene scored his second goal of the game seven seconds into overtime and the Senators capped a four-goal comeback with a 6-5 win over the San Jose Sharks on Friday night.
Down 5-2 to start the third period, the Senators got goals from Derick Brassard, Duchene and Hoffman. Ryan Dzingel and Mark Stone also scored for Ottawa, and Craig Anderson made 30 saves.
Hoffman and Duchene raced for a 2-on-1 off the OT faceoff, and Hoffman slipped a backhand pass across the slot to Duchene, who pushed the puck past goalie Aaron Dell.
”I think we finally got rewarded for the things we’ve been doing,” Duchene said. ”We’ve had some tough stretches defensively and offensively, but we’ve been doing a lot of good things for a while and it hasn’t been going in. It’s nice to see that happen. We had a lot of guys step up for us.
”Once we made it 5-4 I think we felt like we were going to win the game.”
Tomas Hertl led the Sharks with two goals. Melker Karlsson, Chris Tierney and Brett Burns also scored. Dell stopped 37 shots.
Brassard made it 5-3 in the opening minute of the third, beating Dell from a sharp angle. Duchene then scored off his backhand, and Hoffman tied it with his first goal in 15 games, midway through the period. The Senators had 17 shots on goal in the third period alone.
”We felt like we were still in the game and playing well,” Stone said. ”Obviously that third goal helps, you get a lucky bounce and I think it energized the bench a bit. Then we score one before the 10-minute mark and ultimately start putting the pressure on them.”
The Sharks were coming off a 3-2 shootout loss to the Maple Leafs but weren’t using that as an excuse for the third-period meltdown.
”It doesn’t matter how tired we are,” Joe Pavelski said. ”A three-goal lead like that, we expect to win that game and we didn’t. We’re not going to hang our head or anything like that. It’s about us. We definitely had enough energy to play better than we did in the third period.”
The Sharks took a 4-1 lead early in the second, scoring back-to-back power-play goals. Anderson gave up a big rebound and Tierney was there to pick it up, beating the goalie glove side on the first goal. Less than two minutes later, Burns took a great pass from Logan Couture and beat Anderson with a one-timer for his seventh of the season.
The Senators got one back on the power play as Dzingel found Stone, who beat Dell far side.
San Jose regained its three-goal lead on Hertl’s second of the night when Anderson struggled to handle a bouncing puck on a wraparound and watched it bounce in through his legs.
San Jose scored the game’s first goal while short-handed. Hertl, on a breakaway, scored his first of the game at the six-minute mark.
The Senators tied it on a nice goal by Dzingel, but the Sharks regained the lead just over two minutes later when Karlsson tipped in Joakim Ryan’s point shot.
NOTES: Ottawa’s Nate Thompson left early in the first with a lower-body injury and did not return. … Ottawa C Zack Smith returned to the lineup after missing the last five games with a shoulder injury. D Fredrik Claesson was a healthy scratch. … Sharks RW Joel Ward was a healthy scratch to give the veteran the night off.
UP NEXT
Sharks: Play at Winnipeg on Sunday.
Senators: Host Tampa Bay on Saturday night.
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