The Thrashers twice held two-goal leads, and both times they couldn't maintain them, a glaring issue during a disappointing season.
Yet this time it didn’t cost them.
Andrew Ladd scored a fourth-round shootout goal to lift the Thrashers to a 5-4 victory over Ottawa on Sunday at Philips Arena. The victory kept the team’s faint playoff hopes alive.
The Thrashers (32-31-12, 76 points) earned their 15th extra-time win. They remain 11th in the Eastern Conference, nine points behind Buffalo for the eighth and final playoff spot with seven games remaining.
“It’s still frustrating giving up a two-goal lead in the third,” Ladd said. “At some point we have to learn to play with the lead and not give up two goals, but we wanted two points and we got it.”
Goaltender Chris Mason stopped all four Senators shots in the shootout to earn his second shootout win this season. The Thrashers are 5-7 in the one-on-one session.
The Thrashers received goals from Blake Wheeler, Bryan Little, Ben Maxwell and Mark Stuart as they sent 47 shots at Senators goaltender Craig Anderson. Maxwell’s second-period goal was the first in his NHL career. The young forward, obtained in a February trade with Montreal, scored in his 25th game. He slapped in a rebound of a Dustin Byfuglien shot from near the wall that beat Anderson.
“It’s been a long wait,” said Maxwell, who also had an assist. “My first game was 2008. It’s been a long one for me. I’m really excited to get it going. It was a nice play by [Ron] Hainsey and Buff. Buff made a nice shot from the wall and caught the goalie sliding side to side, and I just slapped it in.”
Maxwell’s goal gave the Thrashers a 3-1 lead. It came 19 seconds after Little scored his third goal in five games. Little has eight points (three goals, five assists) in the past 10 games. The back-to-back goals were the second fastest by the Thrashers this season; Nik Antropov and Evander Kane scored 15 seconds apart in a November game against Washington.
Again, the two-goal margin would not stand up.
The Senators pulled within a goal when Chris Neil knocked a rebound from the goal crease past Mason.
Stuart’s first goal, and point, in his 16th game with the Thrashers pushed the lead back to 4-2 just 2:08 into the third period.
The Senators responded with goals by Erik Condra and Marek Svatos, whose second score tied things with 5:08 remaining.
“That’s not what we want to do,” Stuart said. “That’s something we need to remedy. It makes it a lot harder on ourselves." I
The Senators scored twice on goals that hit a Thrashers player or his stick, including a first-period goal by Svatos that bounced off Byfuglien’s skate while he was standing in the goal crease.
“I’ve never seen so many goals go in that close to the net on a consistent basis,” coach Craig Ramsay said. “Our defense keeps getting into the goal crease. … The problem is they get in the way of the goalie. It’s just not a good thing. We must be better around the net. We must be more aggressive and attack those plays before they happen.”
Mason stopped Erik Karlsson, Jason Spezza, Svatos and Ryan Shannon to make Ladd’s lone goal stand up.
“I try not to move before the shooter makes [his] move," Mason said. "I try to make them commit first and then I can react to it. It seemed to work tonight.”
Ladd beat Anderson to the blocker side for the game-winner. He’d previously put the puck past the same goaltender.
“I’ve gone against him in the shootout before and used the same move,” Ladd said. “He’s got a pretty good glove and I just wanted to stay blocker side.”
The Thrashers play their next five games on the road, including a six-day trip to Montreal, Philadelphia and Boston that begins Tuesday.
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