Alexandre Burrows boosts Senators to win in debut

OTTAWA -- Alexandre Burrows scored two goals in his Ottawa Senators debut, helping them to a 2-1 win against the Colorado Avalanche at Canadian Tire Centre on Thursday.
Burrows, acquired from the Vancouver Canucks in a trade for forward prospect Jonathan Dahlen on Monday, scored each goal off a pass from Mike Hoffman. Craig Anderson made 22 saves for the Senators (34-22-6).
Rene Bourque scored, and Calvin Pickard made 40 saves for the Avalanche (17-42-3), who lost for the 13th time in their past 14 road games (1-12-1).

WATCH: Senators vs. Avalanche highlights
Burrows scored at 8:39 of the first period to put Ottawa ahead 1-0, and he made it 2-0 at 15:41 of the second when he beat Pickard to the glove side for his 11th goal.
"I like the way we played," Burrows said. "There's a lot of good players here, and if we play the right way, we'll have some success. Tonight was definitely a step in the right direction. For me personally, playing with some good players, they find me, making good plays. Got a couple of pucks towards the net.
"The first one was pretty lucky, the second one I think it went through the D-man's legs. It was a seeing-eye shot. We'll take those. The biggest thing is we found a way to get a big win. That's why I'm here."

Bourque scored his 10th goal at 5:25 of the third period to make it 2-1. Nathan McKinnon passed the puck out from the corner to Anderson's right to Bourque in the slot, and his shot went in high on the glove side through traffic.
"I didn't think we were that good," Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. "We gave up 40-plus shots. Penalties early that kind of put us on our heels a bit after a decent start to the game. We kind of lost our steam. We turned too many pucks over just inside our blue line and in the neutral zone which gave them a lot of their shots and chances in the first half of the game."
The Avalanche were the subject of rumors prior to the NHL Trade Deadline on Wednesday, and Pickard said the atmosphere changed Thursday.
"No distractions," Pickard said. "We just have to go out and play our game and not worry about anything. You've got to give Ottawa credit. They played a good game tonight. We were right there at the end. It would have been nice to tie it up and get into overtime."

Goal of the game

Burrows scored to put the Senators ahead by two goals after Hoffman took the puck from Avalanche defenseman Mark Barberio in the corner to Pickard's left. Hoffman passed to Burrows in the slot for a quick shot.

Save of the game

Colorado forward John Mitchell slipped behind the Ottawa defense and found himself alone in front of Anderson. He went low on the stick side, but Anderson got out his right pad to make the save at 2:36 of the third period with the Senators up 2-0.

Highlight of the game

Burrows opened the scoring when he took a rink-wide pass from Hoffman and scored from the left faceoff circle on his first shot with the Senators.

Unsung performance of the game

Defenseman Erik Karlsson had six shots on goal on eight attempts and was tied for the Senators lead with six blocked shots in 25:59 of ice time, most on Ottawa.

They said it

"We probably missed the net on the best chances we had on the night. I don't think it was a 2-1 game, to be honest with you. I think they were significantly better than us tonight." -- Avalanche coach Jared Bednar
"It's nice. Obviously a little relief. It's just getting pucks on net, I think. If you keep doing the right things over and over, you're going to get some results. That's one thing we used to talk about in Vancouver, getting pucks on net. We hear the same message here. You get pucks there, sometimes good things are going to happen."-- Senators forward Alexandre Burrows on scoring in his first game with Ottawa after being acquired in a trade from the Vancouver Canucks on Monday
"Wonder what people think of the trade now? What I like about Alex is, already on the bench, he's starting to do his thing. He gets the shots on the first goal and the second goal, but he blocked shots, he had some huge hits. He's just a relentless guy." -- Senators coach Guy Boucher on Alexandre Burrows

Need to know

Karlsson played his 311th consecutive game, tying Chris Phillips for the longest streak in Senators history. … Colorado forward J.T. Compher was minus-1 with three hits and a takeaway in 11:13 in his NHL debut.

What's next

Avalanche: At the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; SN, ALT2, NHL.TV)
Senators:Host the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; CITY, FS-O, NHL.TV)