Nick Cousins buried a late go-ahead goal as the Ottawa Senators earned back-to-back victories for the first time since Oct. 12 with a 4-2 home win over the Utah Mammoth on Saturday.
Samuel Ersson made 30 saves for his third consecutive victory in place of the injured Linus Ullmark (lower body).
Fabian Zetterlund, Michael Amadio and Shane Pinto also found the back of the net for the Senators, while Clayton Keller and Barrett Hayton buried for the Mammoth.
Karel Vejmelka finished with 17 saves as he dropped his third straight decision.
Cousins came through with some late heroics as he went straight to the net after Ottawa won a faceoff and tipped Thomas Chabot’s low shot into the back of the net with 2:18 left in the game.
Zetterlund blistered a wrist shot over the shoulder of Vejmelka just as the Senators’ power play expired to make it 1-0 with 5:27 gone in the first period.
After Ersson denied the first opportunity, Keller pounced on the rebound and put it into the back of the net for a tie game with just over 10 minutes remaining in the opening frame.
Keller snuck loose on a breakaway during 4-on-4 play, but he failed to slide his backhand shot past Ersson’s pad with just over two minutes left in the first.
After Ottawa’s Tim Stutzle danced through the offensive zone, he passed it through the seam to teammate Amadio, but Vejmelka was up to the task and made a beautiful pad save with 11:35 remaining in the scoreless second period.
Ottawa capitalized on a 3-on-1 rush with 13:31 remaining in the final frame when Tyler Kleven fed Amadio, who swapped passes with Claude Giroux before snapping it home to break the tie and put the Senators ahead 2-1.
Utah didn’t wait long to find an equalizer as Hayton reached out and tipped Keller’s point shot past Ersson with almost 10 minutes gone in the third.
Zetterlund eyed his second goal of the night, but his turnaround slap shot found a stick and bounced off the crossbar just moments after the game-tying goal from Hayton.
Pinto capped the night off with an empty-net goal at the 19:44 mark.
–Field Level Media
