OTTAWA – Jean-Gabriel Pageau left it all on the ice Sunday. Including a tooth.
The Ottawa Senators rookie center continued his ascension towards playoff-hero status, scoring a hat trick and losing a tooth in the process to lead his team to a decisive 6-1 win against the Montreal Canadiens to take a 2-1 lead in their Eastern Conference quarterfinal series.
Ottawa not only won on the scoreboard, they exacted a physical toll on the Canadiens that could carry over to Game 4 of the series Tuesday night, playing a physically-assertive game right from the start that ultimately resulted in one third-period shift where there were five fights going on simultaneously.
When it was over, Matt Kassian stood at the center ice faceoff dot and incited the sellout Scotiabank Place crowd of 20,249 to get louder than they already were.
And they did.
All told, the third period had 14 fighting majors and eight game misconducts. It felt like a turning point in the series. Only the Canadiens will determine whether it actually was.
All the fights in the third took some of the thunder away from the extraordinary evening of Pageau, an Ottawa native who in one night matched his goal total in nine career NHL regular-season games.
Pageau's first goal turned out to be the winner when he was sprung in on goal by a Sergei Gonchar pass that split the top Canadiens' defense pair of Andrei Markov and P.K. Subban. After beating Montreal goaltender Carey Price with a great shot high too the stick side, Pageau took a Subban high-stick in the mouth.
Instead of celebrating, Pageau and his Senators teammates were looking for his tooth on the ice.
He scored again 1:18 into the third, beating Price with another wrist shot on the glove side. The Senators crowd took to chanting his name to the tune of the Canadiens' rally song, replacing "Ole" with "Pageau."
The Senators also got goals from Daniel Alfredsson, Kyle Turris and Jakob Silfverberg and Craig Anderson turned aside 33 of 34 shots.
The Canadiens got their lone goal from Rene Bourque and Carey Price went the distance and made 24 saves.
The Senators had perhaps their best period of the series in the first, flying all over the ice and hitting anything in a red, white and blue sweater.
Ottawa coach Paul MacLean said Sunday morning he wanted his team to be more physical against the Canadiens, and the Senators quickly delivered.
Ottawa was credited with 19 hits in the opening 20 minutes, and one shift just prior to the midway point of the period was a nice snapshot of how intense this series between geographic neighbors who have never been considered rivals is growing in intensity.
Montreal's Brandon Prust got it started by nailing Senators defenseman Jared Cowen along the board in the Canadiens zone, but Chris Neil followed that immediately with a big hit on Josh Gorges, and then again by crunching Prust.
The Senators also clearly decided to target Subban, and it began on his very first shift of the game. Subban was lining up Erik Condra as he entered the Canadiens' zone, but instead of taking the hit, Condra got his hands up and appeared to hit Subban in the head with his stick.
It didn't end there, as Subban had a long first period and a long night overall, taking three penalties and ending his evening by taking his frustrations out on Turris, drawing an instigator, fighting major and game misconduct at 8:31 of the third.
The Senators opened the scoring with their first power-play goal of the series, and their fifth in their past 63 chances over the past 17 games.
Playing with a two-man advantage after Max Pacioretty and Gorges took penalties 1:22 apart, giving Gonchar all the space he need to find Alfredsson with a perfect slap pass at the side of the net. Price made the initial save on the deflection, but the Senators captain slid the rebound in at 5:58 for his first of these playoffs and the 48th of his career.
The Canadiens tied it up with a power play goal of their own after Neil went off for roughing when Bourque's fought through a stick check by Zack Smith to get a weak shot off from the slot. The change-up fooled Anderson and just crossed the goal line at 14:34 of the second.
Pageau gave Ottawa a 2-1 lead at 4:40 of the second and made it 3-1 at 1:18 before Turris scored at 7:00 of the third period to put the game out of reach, setting the stage for the donnybrook that followed.
Silfverberg's second of the series only came eight seconds later at 7:08, but in fact it was at least 15 minutes after Turris' goal.
Appropriately enough, the game ended with Pageau completing his hat trick with a power play goal at 18:02 of the third, with hats raining down on the ice to honor the local boy turned hero.
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