Buffalo’s physical play was active in the first period. Matt Ellis, Thomas Vanek, and Patrick Kaleta were all throwing their bodies around. When challenged by Zack Smith, Kaleta dropped the gloves and took care of his opponent.
It was a good way to get the crowd into the game, but the Senators received a lucky bounce past Miller. Ottawa got on the board first after a shot from Jarkko Ruutu was deflected by Chris Kelly past Ryan Miller. The play was reviewed since the net came off the moorings directly after, but the Senators goal counted and it was 1-0.
After dumping the puck in, Mike Fisher drilled Kaleta into the boards, resulting in a five minute power play for the Sabres, and a game misconduct for Fisher. Tim Connolly took a couple minutes off of that by taking a slashing penalty.
The Sabres outshot the Senators 17-10 in the first period, but trailed by one.
The Sabres began the second period with a little less than a minute left on the power play, but they were unable to capitalize. The Senators went up by two on quite a wrist shot from Peter Regin.
Paul Gaustad worked the puck along the boards behind the net, turned around, and scored. The shot was from behind the net and deflected off of Tim Kennedy’s skate and past Brian Elliot to break his shutout streak, which ended at just over 173 minutes.
On the power play, Ottawa regained its two goal lead with a shot from Daniel Alfredsson. The shot was tipped by Jason Spezza and into the net.
Right after the Sabres killed off the penalty Jason Pominville and Steve Montador rushed down the ice on a two on nothing. Pominville ripped it by Elliot and the Sabres trailed 3-2. The Sens completed the victory with an empty net goal by Alfredsson as time expired.
This was the fifth of six meetings between these teams this season, and the Senators have won all four so far. Ottawa has outscored Buffalo 18-9 and have took all ten points in the series. Buffalo will host Tampa Bay on Saturday.