Pinto's Motor City drive to the net was the difference as Ottawa entered the all-star break with a 3-2 overtime victory.
It's been a slow moving train of late for the Jacques Martin Ottawa Senators, but even with some hiccups, it looks like the Senators are starting to figure things out.
Their improvement showed again on Wednesday night when they beat the Detroit Red Wings 3-2 in overtime at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit.
The Senators dealt nicely with falling behind by a goal and losing star defenceman Jake Sanderson in the first period. This Senator team of even three weeks ago would be dead and buried after those types of events, but outside of that Ranger game on Saturday, they've recently shown new resilience.
Detroit opened the scoring when Erik Brannstrom mishandled a D to D pass, which led to a turnover. As Brannstrom then crashsed into the boards, Joe Veleno grabbed the puck and made a cross ice pass to Daniel Sprong, whose snapshot beat Joonas Korpisalo.
The Senators then lost defenceman Jake Sanderson to a lower-body injury. It was unclear what the exact injury was, but it could be a huge loss to a blue line that has leaned on Sanderson all season. Despite that, the Senators stuck with their game plan and continued to press on into the second period.
The newly created line of Shane Pinto alongside Ridly Greig and Vladimir Tarasenko had been dominant all night, almost scoring in the first period when Greig hit the post. Their line helped the Senators get on the board and tie the game at 1.
Following a shift in the Detroit end, that line created chaos, almost scoring with a flurry of shots in front. At the tail end of the shift, as the line was changing in the Detroit zone, it led to a point shot from Jacob Bernard-Docker that was redirected by Mark Kastelic past Wings goalie Alex Lyon.
The Senators then claimed the lead, 2-1, following a penalty kill. Brady Tkachuk exited the box just in time for a breakaway and roofed a vintage snapshot over Lyon’s glove.
In the third, Dylan Larkin would tie the game with just under nine minutes to play, walking into the slot to roof a shot past a screened Korpisalo.
Detroit outshot Ottawa 11-6 in the final frame. However, according to Natural Stat Trick they gave up no high danger chances in the third period. Again, the Senators kept Detroit to the outside, letting Korpisalo see and get square to the puck.
The Senators were able to head to overtime, meaning they had picked up points in 7 of their last 8 games.
The Senators dominated possession, holding onto the puck for most of the extra frame. They would finally get behind the Detroit defence as Thomas Chabot floated down the left wing, while Shane Pinto beat his man and skated hard to the net. Chabot sauced the puck over to Pinto, who slid on his knees to redirect the puck past Lyon for the game winner.
The Senators go into the all-star break with a 6-2-2 record in their last 10 games, and improve to 4-1-1 when all of Shane Pinto, Tim Stutzle and Josh Norris are in the lineup. They return to action on February 10th at 7pm at the Canadian Tire Centre against the Toronto Maple Leafs.