Music: {allcanada} Islanders top Senators to sweep home-and-home

Thursday, December 4, 2014

{allcanada} Islanders top Senators to sweep home-and-home

Elvis' Christmas Album - Elvis Presley

OTTAWA -- The Ottawa Senators honored the greatest offensive star in franchise history Thursday, and then proceeded to produce very little offense.

Daniel Alfredsson kicked things off with an emotional goodbye to his Ottawa fans, but the Senators were unable to provide their former captain with a fairy-tale ending in a 2-1 loss to the New York Islanders.

Jaroslav Halak set a new Islanders record with his 11th straight victory, making 20 saves to complete a home-and-home sweep of the Senators.

The Islanders (19-7-0) improved to 13-2-0 in their past 15 games. It was, however, the Islanders' sixth win in regulation time over that span.

Casey Cizikas scored the game-winning goal at 13:33 of the third period off a play he helped create by forcing a turnover in the Senators zone. He then went to the net and took a Thomas Hickey pass that cut through the teeth of the Ottawa defense to score his fourth goal and give New York a 2-1 lead.

Though the Senators were not able to muster much offense, the one goal they did score was oddly appropriate on a night they celebrated the career of longtime captain Alfredsson, a Swede.

On a 5-on-3 power play late in the second period, the only two Swedish skaters on the team, captain Erik Karlsson and forward Mika Zibanejad, exchanged the puck a few times at the points before Zibanejad blasted a one-timer through Halak's legs to tie the game 1-1 at 15:07.

Karlsson came within an inch and perhaps a few tenths of a second of tying the game, taking a pass in the slot and ringing a shot off the goal post at the final buzzer.

Karlsson then turned and threw his stick toward center ice in frustration.

While Alfredsson said goodbye to the Ottawa fans, Marc Methot reacquainted himself with them. The defenseman made his season debut after missing the first 24 games with an injury to his back area.

Senators forward Bobby Ryan also made a return after missing two games with a broken finger, with coach Paul MacLean saying if he was going to play, Ryan "has to be able to shoot the puck to the back of the net."

Ryan had a glorious opportunity to do just that during a first-period power play when defenseman Cody Ceci set him up with an open net from the faceoff circle, but Ryan missed, staring up to the sky afterwards.

Ryan has two goals in his past 13 games.

The Islanders had a player making a season debut as well, with Michel Grabner returning to the lineup after missing 25 games with a lower-body injury.

Grabner took Josh Bailey's spot in the lineup on a line with Mikhail Grabovski and Frans Nielsen, but only found his way on to the scoresheet by taking a first-period goalie interference penalty that led to Ryan's golden scoring chance.

The Islanders arrived in Ottawa extremely shorthanded on defense, missing three of their top six with Johnny Boychuk, Travis Hamonic and Lubomir Visnovsky not making the trip due to various injuries.

That allowed Griffin Reinhart to play his fourth NHL game, his first since Oct. 14, after he was called up from Bridgeport of the American Hockey League on Wednesday.

Playing mainly with fellow first-round draft pick Calvin de Haan, Reinhart played 14:09 with no action on special teams.

The Islanders opened the scoring on the power play at 11:45 of the second period on Brock Nelson's team-best 12th goal. Nielsen stickhandled the puck behind the net before sending a pass out in front that bounced right to Nelson, who caught Ottawa goalie Craig Anderson out of position for his fifth goal in his past 10 games.

The Senators applied their best pressure of the game in the third period with 12 shots on goal, three more than they produced in the first two periods combined.

But Halak stopped them all, playing spoiler on Alfredsson's big night.

When My Heart Finds Christmas - Harry Connick, Jr.