Senators goaltender Craig Anderson made 24 saves for the win and his teammates worked to clog up the neutral zone and prevent the Wings from gaining speed.
1. Anthony Mantha: At 13:31 of the first period, Dylan Larkin had the puck behind Ottawa's net and he saw Anthony Mantha waiting in the slot. Senators goaltender Craig Anderson made the save to preserve the scoreless tie. Mantha finally did get on the board at 16:37 of the third period when he deflected Mike Green's shot past Anderson, cutting the Senators' lead to 2-1. Larkin also assisted, giving him and Green each a team-leading 11 assists. Mantha leads the Wings with six goals.
Quotable: "There's definitely more to come, he works on his game every single day just like the rest of us, so the sky's the limit for him." - Jimmy Howard
2. Jimmy Howard: Howard was making his sixth consecutive start for the Wings, hoping to extend the team's modest two-game winning streak. With 54.8 seconds left in the first period, Ottawa's Mark Stone went to the net and buried a rebound of Mike Hoffman's shot for a 1-0 lead. Erik Karlsson got the second assist. There were no penalties in the first period but in the second, Trevor Daley was called for holding at 9:39. At 11:25, Alexandre Burrows scored from the slot, giving the Senators a 2-0 lead. The final goal, scored by Nate Thompson, came with an empty net.
Quotable: "They're all so good at getting back above, creating turnovers and then they transition in a hurry. For the first two periods and pretty much the whole night, they executed their game plan pretty well." - Howard
Quotable II: "We started to get pucks behind them a little bit again (in the third), as we did in the first period. I thought we got through the neutral zone. They're playing very tight in the neutral zone, so you've got to make sure to get the puck behind them. It's not going to be a pretty game when we play against Ottawa, so we just gotta be smart enough and patient enough, and really work for our chances." - Wings captain Henrik Zetterberg
3. Scoring: The Wings are currently 25th in the league, averaging 2.57 goals per game. By contrast, the Senators are sixth at 3.54 goals per game. It's a number the Wings are going to have to change in order to have the kind of sustained winning they desire. They fare somewhat better defensively as they are 18th in the league in goals-against per game at 2.93. The Senators are 16th at 2.92.
Quotable: "We had chances early and chances late, but you got to score. That's the league. It's like this every single night and we got to find a way. We're going to help ourselves by scoring more." - Wings coach Jeff Blashill
Quotable II: "I think any team could score more. Any game at any level you could look at it. Yeah we wanted to score, yeah we had those opportunities but it comes down to building. When guys have confidence and shoot the puck with confidence. At least we had shots. We're getting opportunities and that's a good sign. I think any team would want to score more." - Larkin
