Ullmark makes 20 saves, Senators get past Islanders in shootout

OTTAWA -- Linus Ullmark made 20 saves, and the Ottawa Senators defeated the New York Islanders 2-1 in a shootout at Canadian Tire Centre on Thursday.

Ridly Greig scored for the Senators (6-2-0), who were coming off a 7-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday but have won four of five. Shane Pinto scored the lone goal in the shootout.

“Always cool when you could win in the shootout,” Pinto said. “But yeah, we grinded that one out. I think just another 2-1 game for us, and Linus played great again. So, yeah, finding ways to win. It's good.”

Matias Maccelli scored for the Islanders (3-3-1), who have alternated wins and losses through their first seven games. Semyon Varlamov made 18 saves.

“First off, you know, huge game by our goaltender,” New York coach Peter DeBoer said. “Again, I can't say enough about his journey and what he's done to get here, and then what he did tonight, so good to see. I think everyone wished we could have won one for him, but he was outstanding.”

Warren Foegele appeared to give Ottawa a 1-0 lead at 4:50 of the first period. However, after ruling his shot a goal on the ice, a video review determined that the puck hit off the crossbar after glancing off the shoulder of Varlamov.

Stephen Halliday then appeared to score for the Senators at 11:54, but the Islanders challenged the play for offside, and the call was overturned after another video review.

“I don’t even want to focus on those things,” Varlamov said. “Goals, not goals, they didn’t score. And it was 0-0 and we came back.”

Maccelli did score for New York with 12 seconds remaining in the period to make it 1-0. He stole the puck from Pinto just inside the blue line, skated to the top of the right circle, and beat Ullmark glove side with a wrist shot.

Greig tied the game 1-1 at 15:43 of the second period. Foegele took a stretch pass at the blue line from Artem Zub, skated in on a 2-on-1, and sent a saucer pass to Greig for a one-timer over the blocker of Varlamov.

“I think the run we’ve went on is pretty big,” Pinto said. “... To stack up these points now, it's important. It's still a long year, but I think getting off to a good start is huge.”

Both the Senators and the Islanders had a power play in overtime but could not convert.

“I thought it was a very complete game,” Ottawa coach Travis Green said. “I liked a lot of our game tonight. I thought we played fast, played a direct game. I thought we were close offensively to making a few more plays to create a little more, but I thought defensively we were real strong tonight.”

NOTES: Ullmark (6-0-0) tied Ray Emery (2005-06) for the longest season-opening winning streak in Senators history. ... Maccelli extended his point streak to five games (two goals, four assists).