Kuzmenko scores 2, Canucks defeat Senators for 4th win in row

VANCOUVER -- Andrei Kuzmenko scored twice for the Vancouver Canucks in a 5-2 win against the Ottawa Senators at Rogers Arena on Saturday.

J.T. Miller and Nils Aman each had a goal and an assist, and Dakota Joshua had two assists for the Canucks (28-32-5), who have won four in a row for the first time this season and are 7-2-1 in their past 10 games. Thatcher Demko made 18 saves.
"We can definitely feel it in the room. I think there's a buy-in that's going on right now," Demko said. "That's just playing the right way. It's contagious when everyone's doing it and it looks good."

Tim Stützle had two assists, and Mads Sogaard made 25 saves for the Senators (33-28-4), who have lost two of their past three after winning the previous five.
Ottawa trails the New York Islanders by six points for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference.
"It's frustrating," forward Claude Giroux said. "I didn't think we played that bad. We did a lot of good things but kind of a weird game. to be honest. You think you're playing pretty good and then you're down 4-0, so definitely frustrating."
The Canucks held the Senators to 20 shots and kept them off the scoreboard until they scored twice in the final 6:21 to briefly close the gap to 4-2.
"We're continuing to go in the right direction," Miller said. "They got a couple at the end, but we should be proud of our effort against a team on that much of a roll and fighting for their playoff lives. It feels good to beat them."
Vancouver was 1-for-6 on the power play and scored short-handed while preventing Ottawa from converting three power plays.
"We took six penalties on the road tonight. You're not going to win," Smith said.

Kuzmenko put the Canucks ahead 1-0 at 15:05 of the first period, taking a pass in the slot from Miller below the goal line and deking around Sogaard on the backhand.
Miller made it 2-0 with his fourth short-handed goal of the season, and third in the past four games, 4:26 into the second period.
Demko made a right-pad save on a Brady Tkachuk spin move in tight at 4:15, and Miller finished off a give-and-go with Aman at the other end after Alex DeBrincat lost the puck at the blue line and fell.
Vancouver's penalty kill came in ranked last in the NHL at 68.3 percent but is tied for second in the NHL with 11 short-handed goals; nine have come in the 19 games since Rick Tocchet took over for Bruce Boudreau as coach Jan. 22.
"It's just a matter of catching our breaks, honestly," Miller said. "We got gifted a 2-on-1 and [DeBrincat] pretty much fell. So, it's not like we're looking for them, they're just kind of falling on our tape right now."

Aman made it 3-0 at 10:27 after Joshua cut to the net off right wing and lost the puck atop the crease only to have it bounce across to Aman for a tap-in.
Sheldon Dries made it 4-0 at 6:50 of the third period, finishing a 3-on-2 pass from Joshua with a glove-side wrist shot from the slot after DeBrincat missed an open net at the other end.
Giroux made it 4-1 at 13:39 after Thomas Chabot's shot hit Aman in the slot and bounced to him alone at the side of the net.
Nick Holden beat a screened Demko over the glove at 15:44 to make it 4-2.
"Had a little feeling that we might come back so it's definitely a little frustrating right now," Giroux said.

Kuzmenko scored his second goal on a power play into an empty net with 15 seconds left for the 5-2 final.
"We had an opportunity, 6-on-4 with two minutes to go, to narrow the game to one and we end up in the box," Smith said.
NOTES:Ottawa defenseman Artem Zub left after taking a puck in the face in the final minute of the first period and did not return. Smith did not have an update after the game. … Giroux has 17 points (10 goals, seven assists) in his past 12 games. … Stützle has 11 points (five goals, six assists) in his past seven games. … Kuzmenko lead the Canucks with 32 goals, including 10 in the past 11 games, and has five points (four goals, one assist) on a four-game point streak.