Sens top Leafs in ‘scuffle’ of Ontario

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There being no longer an appropriate catch phrase for meetings between the two Ontario NHL teams, applications are invited for a suitable replacement for "Battle."

Just keep it clean.

Wednesday night at Canadian Tire Centre, 18,894 fans watched a wild, often-chaotic scuffle take place between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Ottawa Senators, the Senators hanging on to a 4-3 victory largely on the play of their year-long most valuable player, goaltender Craig Anderson.

"We were like the Marines," Ottawa head coach Dave Cameron said. "It was an adventure."

The Ottawa win left the two provincial rivals tied at 47 points, with fans who dreamed of playoffs as recently as the fall now talking potential draft picks rather than potential opponents.

The playoffs are still a possibility, but close to a technicality.

Both teams recently replaced their coaches in the hopes of changing their fortunes, but they might as well have changed their underwear for all the good it has done.

Both Toronto's Randy Carlyle and Ottawa's Paul MacLean were replaced by their understudies, Peter Horachek now leading his Leafs to a dismal 1-7-0 record while Cameron sports a more reasonable, if unimproved, 8-7-4 record.

In Toronto, the fans throw their jerseys on the ice in disgust. In Ottawa, where fans are reluctant to part with caps for a rare hat trick, they merely throw up their hands – the despair level in the nation's capital significantly lower than in the provincial capital.

Besides, a victory – any victory – over the Maple Leafs is treated roughly like a civic holiday.

Toronto, after all, had won 10 of its past 12 games against the Senators and eight of the past 11 in the Senators' home rink.

Horachek's understudy, assistant coach Steve Spott, had said earlier in the day that the first goal would be important for the Leafs, in that it might "create some positive emotion" at such a dismal time.

That seemed a distinct possibility in the opening moments as Toronto's best scorer, Phil Kessel, was sent in on a clear breakaway, only to miss the net.

Seconds later, Ottawa's Mike Hoffman came up over the Toronto blueline and, using defenceman Roman Polak as a screen, blew a wrist shot past goaltender James Reimer for the 16th goal of his rookie season.

Ten minutes later, the Senators went ahead 2-0 on a gorgeous passing play that saw captain Erik Karlsson carry into the Toronto zone and feed the puck over to Hoffman, who one-timed a pass back, leaving Karlsson with the empty side of Reimer's net.

Ottawa scored again in the dying seconds of the first when they gained a man advantage on a delayed penalty call. With Anderson racing to the bench for an extra attacker, Bobby Ryan fed a perfect cross-ice pass to Mika Zibanejad for his 11th of the year.

So dominant was Ottawa in that opening period that Horachek might have wished he could go all the way back to the origins of the "Battle of Ontario." In a Stanley Cup game played in Ottawa 111 years ago, the Toronto players became convinced Ottawa had "salted the ice" during the break, allowing them to slow down the speedy Toronto team and get Ottawa back in the match, which they won on five straight goals scored on the slushy ice.

There was no evidence of trickery, but the Leafs did play much better in the second period, yet could manage only the one goal. The Senators failed to clear their zone and the puck came bouncing back to David Clarkson, who clipped it out of the air and over Anderson's blocker.

"It doesn't matter who you're playing," Ottawa alternate captain Chris Neil had said earlier in the day. "You want to get on any team. For us, it's being consistent. Whether we have a good first period and let up in the second, the other team is going to have a push back."

But that "push back" was a long time coming for Ottawa. The Leafs continued to mount their comeback in the third. On a Toronto power play, it was again the much-maligned Clarkson tipping a point shot between Anderson's pads to bring Toronto to within a goal.

With less than five minutes to go, Karlsson seemed to settle the issue with a hard blast from the right boards that beat Reimer to the short side.

"He's on top of his game," Cameron said of his star defenceman earlier in the day. In the evening, Karlsson proved it.

Toronto struck again in the dying minutes when James van Riemsdyk scored but, despite pulling Reimer, they could not tie the game. The victory, for whatever it might mean in the end, was Ottawa's.

Anderson's value to his team was evident in the shots, 40-26 in favour of Toronto. He was, as always, his team's best player.

For each team, it was the last match before the all-star break. The Senators head into the weekend with a welcome win, the Leafs with their sixth loss in a row.

One obvious word that comes to mind when redefining the old "Battle of Ontario" is "tragedy" – but that word was reserved this night for a moving moment of silence for the two RCMP officers who were shot this week in Alberta, Constable David Matthew Wynn dying earlier in the day from his wounds.

This was no tragedy. This was merely a hockey game.