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Canwest News Service
OTTAWA — For 799 career games with the Ottawa Senators, Chris Phillips has earned a reputation as one of the NHL’s steadiest defenders — not flashy, but capable of shutting down a top scorer.
For game No. 800 on Thursday night, Phillips decided to have a little fun, scoring twice, his first multi-goal game in eight years, to complete a 6-2 rout of the Pittsburgh Penguins.
The Senators carried a 2-1 lead into the third period of what had been a tight, defensive game, but they broke through with three goals in the third to chase Canadian Olympic candidate goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury, and a final goal against backup Brent Johnson.
Beating a contending team starts with outworking them. The Senators did that for a full game and handled the defending Stanley Cup champions with surprising ease for Ottawa’s first victory of the season against an elite team.
The Senators took full advantage of Pittsburgh’s inexperienced defence (four regulars were missing), but also make Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin look ordinary. Malkin did score, on a too-little-too late shot, late in the third.
Just as their schedule begins to toughen up, the Senators have put together their first two-game winning streak since the middle of October when they beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 7-1 and the Montreal Canadiens 3-1.
A game against the Penguins figured to be special, but with the home team playing it tight, collapsing in front of goaltender Pascal Leclaire to prevent shots, it was slow to build. Overall, not nearly as entertaining as Tuesday’s Ottawa-Toronto tilt, but fans enjoyed the spectacle of the Senators hanging a six-spot on Pittsburgh.
Asked about the challenge of defending Crosby and Malkin now that they’ve been re-connected on a line, Phillips said it would be “twice as big a problem.”
Who knew Phillips would be the scoring threat on the night?
Playing 800 games all in a Senators uniform, is a milestone that had Phillips thinking about his place in club history.
“It’s big,” Phillips said. “It means 1,000 games is next. I’m excited to get to 800 … especially when it’s with a pretty young organization.”
The big defenceman noted he is creeping up on his old pal Wade Redden, who sits second on the Senators all-time list with 838 games played.
Phillips has also always been tough on Crosby and he kept him in check on Thursday, with big No. 4 scoring goals in his spare time, both on third-period wrist shots that Fleury did not move on.
There was plenty of joy to go around for Ottawa — Jonathan Cheechoo scored his second of the season and Chris Kelly his first.
The Penguins had been deadly (10-1) when they scored first, and they didn’t take long to get on the board, Jordan Staal reaching past Alex Picard to convert a Pascal Dupuis pass just a minute and nine seconds into the game.
The Senators chipped away, though, with goals by Matt Carkner and Milan Michalek.
Carkner’s shot from atop the faceoff circle was the culmination of an extended pressure shift by the line of Mike Fisher, Nick Foligno and Alex Kovalev in the middle of the first period. The Penguins tried desperately to clear the zone but could not, and Carkner leaned into a shot that caught the inside of the far post.
Fleury had little chance on it.
On a second-period power play, Michalek gave the Senators their first lead of the night when he deflected a Daniel Alfredsson wrist shot. It was Michalek’s 100th career NHL and his ninth as a Senator.
Good news for people who drafted Fisher and Michalek in the fantasy pool. But did anyone really expect them to be leading the Senators in goal scoring, both with nine, nearing the season quarter pole?
