Korpisalo steals 5-3 win for the Sens over the Oilers

In a rare turn of events, Joonas Korpisalo played the hero tonight, making 33 saves on 36 shots to lead the Sens to a surprise victory. Even more impressively, Korpisalo had been the starter last night in New Jersey too, giving him two wins in two days. Jakob Chychrun potted two goals, Tim Stützle and Drake Batherson each had three points, and the Sens snuck out the win thanks to three powerplay goals despite managing just 16 shots on goal.

The first period wasn't great overall for the Sens, but they managed to escape tied 1-1 despite being outshot 13-9. Adam Henrique (who, fun fact, is an Oiler) scored the opening goal, but the Sens responded pretty quickly on the powerplay, with Jakob Chychrun notching his 10th goal of the year:

Zach Hyman was really pushing for his 50th, but Korpisalo was strong. He also made probably his best sequence of saves on the season in the first:

The Sens nearly killed off a powerplay to start the second thanks to some solid saves by Korpisalo, but the Oilers retook the lead off a one-timer from Leon Draisaitl right on the goal line that was the kind of goal that only a handful of players in the league could score. That was followed up with another gifted powerplay and another powerplay goal against, this time giving Hyman his 50th on the year. But Tim Stützle wasn't happy to be down by two and decided to bring his team back within one:

Then Vincent Desharnais took his second interference call of the game and still look confused as to how he could be penalized, so maybe someone should show him the rulebook or something. Anyway, the Sens scored on the powerplay, with Drake Batherson being afforded way too much ice after Brady Tkachuk drew the defenders' attention:

After two periods, the shot count was 31-12 for Edmonton, but the score was 3-3. Pending UFA Calvin Pickard seemed to be doing his best to show he'd fit right in on Ottawa next year.

The third period was all Edmonton. The Oilers actually weren't managing many shots on goal, but they still somehow had all the offensive zone time. The Sens were doing their best to defend, get pucks out of the zone, and change. Late in the third, Mathieu Joseph forced Mattias Ekholm into a holding penalty with Ottawa's first real offensive pressure. On the powerplay, the Sens got set up and Batherson got to make almost the identical play to Chychrun as the opening goal, a cross-ice saucer pass that Chychrun ripped home:

Suddenly Ottawa was up 4-3 late in a game in which they had no business being in. Edmonton pulled the goalie, but Claude Giroux made a wily play, intercepted a puck in the defensive zone, and set up Parker Kelly to ice it. Sens win 5-3 despite being out shot 36-16.

Game Thoughts:

• Where's this Korpisalo been... all season? He was super busy and more than held his own.
• It's nice to see Dr. Don Chow get inducted into the Ring of Honour. Based on the way every player talked about him, you can tell how much he meant to this team. I do think longevity among off-ice staff should be celebrated more by more teams.
• Though it's not as offensively strong a season as last year, Tim Stützle is now at 50 assists on the year, and is set to surpass his career high of 51 last year. His shooting percentage has been low, but he's still been really, really good on the whole.
• Drake Batherson looks confident with the puck out there. Both saucer passes to Jakob Chychrun were things of beauty.
• We don't often feature non-hockey on here, but I want to give a shoutout to the Ottawa-based Rachel Homan rink, who defeated Switzerland 7-5 to secure the Women's World Curling Championship. The Homan rink went 62-6 on the season, which is an outstanding 91% win rate. It's hard to overstate what a dominant season this was for her team, in no small part because she was ice-cold clutch so many times. Not bad for someone who gave birth to her third child less than 7 months ago.

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