Joonas Korpisalo made 40 saves as the Senators defeated the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-2.
It certainly wasn't the Ottawa Senators' finest game of the season, but, as the old saying goes, there's no room for description on the scoreboard.
The Senators rode Joonas Korpisalo's 40-save performance to a 5-2 road win over the Pittsburgh Penguins Saturday night. The win snaps a three-game losing slide for the Senators, who capitalized on their limited chances early on while Korpisalo erased a number of defensive breakdowns.
That's the opposite of what's happened in most of Ottawa's losses this season.
The Senators were outplayed early and outshot 12-5 but grabbed a 2-0 advantage on goals by Ridly Greig and Brady Tkachuk, both set up by Claude Giroux. Greig's game-opening goal came on the power play after Kris Letang was finally called for one of several hard crosschecks on Sens winger Parker Kelly.
Tkachuk scored two goals on the night. Dominik Kubalik and Drake Batherson rounded out the scoring.
Travis Hamonic had a goal disallowed due to an offside-by-a-hair challenge that would have made it 3-0. Pittsburgh couldn't build off that as, a short time later, Kubalik made it 3-0 for real with his first goal and point as a Senator.
Batherson's goal was also his first of the season – a nice backhand on a breakaway to make it 5-1 and fully put the game out of reach.
With rookies Tyler Kleven and Nikolas Matinpalo being forced into action and playing under 10 minutes, the Sens leaned hard on their top two. Jakob Chychrun played over 27 minutes, and Jake Sanderson got almost 26. Even Jacob Bernard-Docker and Travis Hamonic each played 21:45, well beyond what they'd usually expect to play.
Sidney Crosby and Jake Guentzel scored for the Penguins.
The Senators improved to 4-4 on the season and now get a little time off next week before hosting the Los Angeles Kings in their next game on Thursday night.