Photo credit: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

By Pearl Allison Lo

~ It was lucky seven as Ottawa leapfrogged over the Boston Bruins into a playoff spot with their seventh straight win, and their rallying goalie Andrew Hammond got his seventh win on home ice, via a 5-2 win over the San Jose Sharks Monday.

Hammond is yet without a regulation loss in his career.

It was just the Senators’ third win in ten meetings versus the Sharks and ended a four-game San Jose win streak in Ottawa. The Sharks are still not mathematically out.

Shots and the score were pretty even until the third. San Jose was outshot 17-9 in the final frame with four unanswered goals.

The game scoring started with the Senators’ Mika Zibanejad putting the puck in off his knee, as he was aided by Mike Hoffman and Bobby Ryan at 14:09 of the first. There was a review after the goal, but the score was upheld.

Both second period scoring plays involved the Sharks’ Chris Tierney.

Less than 20 seconds after Tierney drew a penalty, Joe Pavelski tied the game on the power play. After Brent Burns’s shot went off Hammond, Pavelski put in his 18th power play goal as he went to his bottom. Patrick Marleau also helped at 12:47.

30 seconds later, Tierney scored on a 2-on-1 to make it 2-1. After a pass by Tommy Wingels, Tierney put the puck in with his backhand. Matt Nieto also assisted.

The trouble started in the third, just like the teams’ last game, with three unanswered goals.

Zibanejad struck again first, with Ryan getting the primary assist this time and Hoffman the secondary, for the game’s second tie at 2:19 of the third.

At 12:11, Ottawa regained the lead. Alex Chiasson scored, aided by Mark Stone and Cody Ceci.

The momentum increased when over a minute later, Jean-Gabriel Pageau, helped by Erik Karlsson, made it 4-2 on a 2-on-1. The goal resulted in the first hamburger on the ice and increasing crowd noise at 13:23.

Zibanejad had to leave after being hit by the puck. It looked almost like he was blocking Hoffman’s shot in front of San Jose goalie Antti Niemi.The similarity in the comeback ended when the Senators’ Kyle Turris missed on an empty net, but Hoffman scored later to make it 5-2.  Hoffman was assisted by David Legwand and Ryan. It would be Ryan’s third assist of the night.

Pavelski said post-game, “We’re just going to play. We can’t look ahead. It does us no good. We’ll try to keep working on things & see where it goes.”

Game notes: Ottawa won takeaways and blocked shots, 9-2 and 18-11 respectively. Since February 28 when the teams last met, the Senators have scored at least two goals in all but one game. They lost that game, versus Boston, and just had one other loss in the whole span, the game after they beat the Sharks. Other similarities in the latter game also consisted of a 1-0 score after the first, a player scoring two goals and the last goal being an empty netter. San Jose next plays Thursday, March 26 against the Detroit Red Wings at 4:30pm.