Sabers wins against Senators in season opener – TSN.ca

BUFFALO, NY (AP) — Craig Anderson has revealed he’s still capable of making numerous clutch saves. The 41-year-old Buffalo Sabers goaltender isn’t bad at cracking a few jokes between halves, either.

Anderson opened his 20th NHL season with the last laugh by stopping 35 shots in a 4-1 win over one of his former teams, the Ottawa Senators, on Thursday night.

It was during the second break that Anderson delivered an amusing message to reassure Buffalo’s young group of players and after a period in which he stopped Ottawa’s Tyler Motte and Tim Stultze on separate breakaway attempts.

“I came in and told the guys I was 80% on breakaways, so I stopped four,” he said, referring to a few other stops he made in the first period. “The fifth will probably go in, so we should probably clean it up.”

It was an old comment from a veteran goaltender who enjoyed playing at Buffalo so much last season that he decided against retiring to return for another year.

“I think it just keeps the room light,” said Anderson, who has his 309th career win, which ranks fifth among American-born goalies. “It’s one of those things where there wasn’t a panic and the boys settled in after that.”

After spotting the Senators’ opening goal, Rasmus Dahlin and rookie JJ Peterka went on to equalize a 2:54 difference in the second period. Victor Olofsson sealed the win by scoring two goals in the last 42 seconds without scoring.

The Sabers began to pick up the momentum from last season’s conclusion and showed signs of Jelling as they won 16 of their last 27 games. Though Buffalo set an NHL record by missing the playoffs for the 11th straight season, fifth-place finish in the Atlantic Division was their best since third-place finish in 2011-12.

Senators captain Brady Tkachuk pulled in a shot from the left circle after a 3-for-2 break to score the opener midway through the first period. The Senators were crushed by their power play ending 0 of 4, including failing to convert a two-man advantage of 49 seconds in the second period.

“We had to score on the power play, which was really good for us, but not tonight,” said Senators coach DJ Smith. “Execution. I think the guys probably wanted it too much and maybe just squeezed. Didn’t go in the net. But there were a lot of chances, just don’t go in.”

Anton Forsberg stopped 32 shots early in the season as the Senators starter in place of Cam Talbot, who is expected to miss another four to six weeks with an upper-body injury.

In the presence of Bill’s star quarterback Josh Allen and in Alex Tuch’s #89 Sabers jersey, Peterka scored his first career NHL goal and leveled the score at 4:31 in the second half by hitting a give-and-go with Linemate Dylan Cozens stormed up the right wing.

Dahlin then performed much of the powerful lifting in scoring the go-ahead goal. Dahlin started the game by reaching the Senators blue line before dishing out a pass and heading to the front of the net. The defender was left there alone when he was set up behind the Ottawa net by a pass from Peyton Krebs.

Sabers coach Don Granato attributed both teams’ disagreements to nervousness in the opening game and credited Anderson with buying time for Buffalo to finally find his groove.

A great, great job tonight because we’re not going to win this game tonight without him capturing things at really crucial moments,” said Granato. “If you fall behind the way we’ve sometimes squeezed our stick, that’s not a good prescription.”

Anderson’s best save came with 7:40 to go when he dived and knocked the puck off the stick of Stutzle, who drove in from the left circle. Anderson also extended his arm to stop Claude Giroux’s snap in a 2-on-1 break with less than three minutes to go.

“Yeah, I passed out,” Anderson said, referring to his poke check on Stutzle. “I wasn’t going to just give him a freebie and I took my chances. And, you know, I don’t know, maybe next time I’ll get beat up and look silly because of it. But for us tonight it worked.”

IN REMEMBRANCE

The Sabers held a pre-game ceremony honoring the families of those who were shot dead in a racially motivated attack on a Buffalo convenience store in May. Both teams then gathered in a minute’s silence behind family members on the ice. The Sabers announced they will have the words “Choose Love” on their helmets this season.

NEXT

Senators: On Saturday at the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Sabers: Hosts the Florida Panthers on Saturday.

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