CALGARY — Ottawa's power play finally awoke from its slumber.
The Senators man advantage produced two goals on seven chances Friday night and Ottawa used 25 saves from Craig Anderson to shut out the Calgary Flames 6-0.
The absence of all-star defenceman Erik Karlsson, recovering from off-season foot surgery, has hurt the power play, which entered the night 0 for 16. The Sens captain is normally the quarterback on the man advantage.
"Don't forget our best power-play guy is not playing right now so it's a little harder for us," said Derrick Brassard, who had a goal and an assist. "We focused on putting some pucks in and trying to outnumber them and we got rewarded tonight."
Brassard's goal, making it 2-0 at 18:43 of the second, came just as Calgary's Dougie Hamilton was stepping onto the ice. His penalty on the heels of a double-minor to Mikael Backlund resulted in Ottawa getting a power play for nearly six continuous minutes.
Back on the man advantage again to start the third, Hoffman scored at 1:08 to once again silence the crowd at the Scotiabank Saddledome.
"We definitely needed it (power play), just to get momentum going," said Ottawa centre Kyle Turris, who had three assists. "We knew we were doing the right things, but after a while, when you're not scoring, but you're doing the right things, it's frustrating.
"To keep that confidence, reassuring us that we were doing the right things, we just have to keep it going."
Mike Smith entered the game with a .950 save percentage in starting the first four games. He ended up being pulled from Calgary's net after giving up five goals on 22 shots in 47:48 of work.
"You can't kill penalties that long in this league and get away with it," said Smith. "Sooner or later you're going to get burned and tonight that happened to us."
Eddie Lack mopped up the final eight minutes, giving up one goal on six shots.
"Definitely feel bad," said Flames captain Mark Giordano, talking about Smith's lack of support. "Too many quality chances that we can't let happen. Especially there on the PP, we've got to get in some lanes, we've got to find ways to kill it."
Cody Ceci and Mark Stone also had a goal and an assist to lead Ottawa's (2-0-2) offence. Mike Hoffman, Ryan Dzingel and Chris Wideman rounded out the attack.
Calgary (3-2-0) was shut out for the second time this season. After being blanked 3-0 in Edmonton in their season-opener, the Flames had won three straight.
"Calgary came out of the gates flying," said Anderson, who turned aside six shots in a row to start the game. "They had some good chances early and we were able to weather the storm and figure out how to get some momentum back."
Anderson earned his first shutout of the season and 39th of his career. Four of Anderson's stops came against Jaromir Jagr, who made his home ice debut. The veteran's best chance came when he was set up from behind the net by Sam Bennett.
Notes: Former Senator Curtis Lazar got back in the Flames lineup in place of left-winger Tanner Glass, who was a scratch after playing in the first four games of the season... For this game, Lazar wore the same helmet sticker that Ottawa players are wearing as a tribute to Bryan Murray. Lazar tweeted, "Pleased to have the chance to honour Bryan Murray tonight. He gave me my start in the NHL & I am forever grateful for all he has done for me.".
Darren Haynes, The Canadian Press