Pageau goal pushes Senators past Kings in OT

OTTAWA -- Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored 3:12 into overtime to give the Ottawa Senators a 3-2 win against the Los Angeles Kings at Canadian Tire Centre on Thursday.

Pageau got his own rebound and tucked the puck past the outstretched left leg of Jack Campbell. The forward, who leads the Senators with seven goals and has four in his past three games, said he hasn't felt this confident offensively since junior hockey.
"I don't think my role has been really offensive since I've been in the NHL," Pageau said. "It doesn't matter. I take pride in a role, defensively, playing against good players. It's a good challenge every night, and that's my mindset. I want to defend, and if you defend well, it's going to create some chances offensively."
WATCH: [All Kings vs. Senators highlights]
Artem Anisimov and Anthony Duclair scored, and Anders Nilsson made 26 saves for the Senators (5-9-1), who won for the fourth time in seven games (4-3-0).
"I think we had a strong showing there for 60 minutes," Duclair said. "[Nilsson] helped us all game; he played a great game. We definitely wanted to go into overtime and get that extra point for him."
Tyler Toffoli and Dustin Brown scored, and Campbell made 30 saves for the Kings (5-10-1), who are 1-5-1 in their past seven games.
"This was a good opportunity for our team, tonight, to win a hockey game," Kings defenseman Drew Doughty said. "I think our first was OK, the second they were a little bit better and then at the beginning of the third they were better than us, so you've got to play a full 60 minutes to win hockey games in this league, and they played better for the majority of the game."

Toffoli scored on a backhand through traffic with 7.2 seconds remaining in the third period to tie it 2-2.
"We were aggressive," Los Angeles coach Todd McLellan said of its late push to tie the game. "We had to be, we had no choice. We got some pucks to the net. They had an opportunity at an empty net and overpassed, and sometimes that comes back to haunt you, and it did, so good for us to find a way to get a point. Not so good on us to leave a point behind."
Anisimov made it 2-1 at 9:50 of the third when he took a pass from Tyler Ennis at the top of the crease and beat Campbell with a snap shot to the bottom left corner.
Duclair tipped a Nikita Zaitsev point shot to tie it 1-1 with 2:37 left in the second period. He has 14 goals in 36 games since the Senators acquired him in a trade with the Columbus Blue Jackets on Feb. 23.
"I'm definitely confident like last year when I came in," Duclair said. "I just want to continue that. Getting the support from the coaching staff and [my] teammates here has been unbelievable, so I just want to keep moving forward and keep pushing for them."
Brown finished a give-and-go with Anze Kopitar to give the Kings a 1-0 lead at 6:51.

They said it

"I thought the puck was bouncing everywhere tonight, it was all over the place. Not a lot of clean plays made. [I'd] probably sum it up as an ugly game, but one we had a chance to win in overtime and couldn't quite take advantage of it." -- Kings coach Todd McLellan
"He's a counterpuncher. He lets you make the mistake and then he jumps on it, and he's been opportunistic. He doesn't cheat for offense; he gets rewarded because he plays the right way." -- Senators coach D.J. Smith on Pageau
"I think we're starting to build something here. Two wins in our last three games. I think tonight we played a pretty solid game overall. Slow start at the beginning, but I think after that we took over." -- Senators forward Jean-Gabriel Pageau

Need to know

Kings forward Trevor Lewis left the game in the first period with a lower-body injury. McLellan said Lewis would be reevaluated Friday. … Senators forward Brady Tkachuk had an assist to give him six points (two goals, four assists) in his past five games. ... Ottawa forward Jonathan Davidsson had two shots and played 4:56 in his NHL debut.

What's next

Kings: At the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; CITY, SNE, TVAS, FS-W, NHL.TV)
Senators: Host the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; SN1, TVAS2, FS-CR, NHL.TV)