Homegrown Emery gives Senators strong
playoff goaltending
(AP) - Daniel Alfredsson has seen a lot
of goalies line up behind him during the Ottawa Senators' 10 consecutive
playoff appearances.
After watching the likes of Ron Tugnutt, Damian Rhodes, Tom Barasso and
Patrick Lalime come and go, Alfredsson and the Senators seem to have
finally found the playoff goaltending they've always sought in Ray
Emery.
"The experience he had last year and the
consistency he's shown this year, it gives you confidence," Alfredsson
said. "Playing a tough game on the road, coming up as big as he did is
obviously huge."
Last year's experience? Emery started each of Ottawa's 10 postseason
games after he took over as the starter when Dominik Hasek suffered a
season-ending injury during the Olympics in Turin.
This season? Emery was 33-16-6 in 58 games, with a 2.47 goals-against
average and a .918 save percentage.
The tough road game? Emery's 23-save performance in Tuesday's 2-1 win in
Pittsburgh which gave the Senators a 3-1 lead in their first-round
series.
"I want to win," Emery said Wednesday after practice at Scotiabank
Place. "I'm not too concerned about what guys did in the past or what
the team's done in the past. I want to win just as much as everyone else
in this room.
"I think it's kind of blown out of proportion how the team's had some
playoff failures. We've been in the playoffs a lot more than 90 percent
of the teams in the league so they've done pretty well for themselves
but they haven't won, so that's definitely our goal this year."
Chosen 99th overall in the 2001 draft, Emery is the first No. 1 goalie
Ottawa has developed in its 15-year-history.
"You look at teams that have success in the playoffs and that's usually
the first place you look -- goaltending -- and that was a case in point
last night," Senators defenseman Chris Phillips said. "It wasn't our
best game but 'Razor' gave us the opportunity to win and we backed that
up."
Ottawa, which hosts Pittsburgh for Game 5 on Thursday, has gone on to
win each of the four previous series it has led 3-1.
While the Senators clearly didn't play their best game of the series
Tuesday, Penguins coach Michel Therrien saw his team's best outing go
unrewarded.
"We thought that after breaking down the game, there was no doubt that
was our best effort," Therrien said. "It was our best game of the
playoffs and we've got to make sure we try to play the same type of game
on the road. We understand that it's going to be difficult. This is a
team that's played really well at home. We won one game over there. It
was nice to win that game, but we know we are capable of winning there
again."
Pittsburgh's only win in the series so far came in Game 2, when it
recovered from being badly outplayed in the second period to tie the
game twice in the third before Sidney Crosby scored the eventual winner
midway through the period.
Crosby, the youngest scoring leader in league history, sounded
determined to extend his first playoff run beyond Thursday after he and
most of his teammates took part in an optional practice Wednesday.
"We're going to leave it all out there," Crosby said. "That's all we can
do. I don't think we can worry too much about the result. We need to
focus on how we play. Sometimes you get caught up in the result and you
don't focus on how you played. We just got to make sure we're worried
about that, and I think we're all confident about our game."
Senators right wing Chris Neil expects he and his teammates will face
another hard-fought battle and that his team's depth will help them
prevail.
"They came out there ready to play last game," Neil said. "We got off to
a shaky start. For two periods we didn't play our greatest and we were
able to come out and play a good third period and win a hockey game.
That says a lot about our hockey team.
"We've got a well-rounded group of guys and if our top line doesn't
score, we'll get one from our second line or our third line. Guys chip
in here and there so that's great."
|
