Senators tighten wild-card race in East with win against Rangers

NEW YORK -- The Ottawa Senators continued their climb up the Eastern Conference standings with a 2-1 win against the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Monday.

The Senators (37-24-9) have won three games in a row and improved to 14-3-2 in 19 games since Jan. 25. They are two points behind the idle New York Islanders for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the East.

“I think we're all clicking as one team, and you can really see that with the past five, 10 games that we've been playing,” Senators defenseman Jordan Spence said. “We're playing really well, especially in the defensive zone, but even in the offensive zone as well. We're creating a lot of chances, we're cycling down low and we're having a lot of chances. We have 12 more games left. We're on a playoff push, so hopefully we can keep on doing what we can."

Shane Pinto and Warren Foegele scored, and James Reimer made nine saves for Ottawa.

Ottawa allowed just 10 shots on goal despite playing the final 33:14 with four defensemen after losing Thomas Chabot to a right arm injury at the end of the first period and Lassi Thomson to a lower-body injury at 6:46 of the second.

Senators coach Travis Green said Chabot and Thomson will be out a while. He did not give specifics beyond that.

"Just a great team effort tonight,” Green said. “Obviously, with two defensemen going down, guys have to step up, play a lot more minutes than they're used to. The forwards were helping them out. It was just a real good team win."

Spence played a career-high 26:44, while Tyler Kleven and Artem Zub played 24:30 and 23:44, respectively.

Conor Sheary scored, and Igor Shesterkin made 31 saves for the Rangers (28-34-9), who lost their fifth consecutive game (0-4-1). Ahead of the contest, New York celebrated center Mika Zibanejad, who skated in his 1,000th career NHL game.

“I don’t know what to say,” Rangers captain J.T. Miller said. “We got outplayed, we got outcompeted. Things that we’re just not OK with as a group and it’s a shame on a night like tonight.”

The 10 shots on goal tied for the Rangers fewest in a game since the League began officially tracking shots on goal in 1959-60, according to NHL Stats. They also had 10 shots in 1-0 win against the St. Louis Blues on Jan. 2, 1999.

“I’ll acknowledge that our circumstance is difficult, but I don’t think there’s any room for rationalizing,” Rangers coach Mike Sullivan said. “I just think we’ve got to play a game with more commitment.”

Pinto gave the Senators a 1-0 lead with a power-play goal, scoring on a wrist shot from inside the right face-off circle at 6:30 of the first period. Claude Giroux set it up with a pass off the right wall after he received a diagonal pass from Spence from the left point.

Ottawa extended its lead to 2-0 at 6:46 of the second period, when Lars Eller set up Foegele for a snap shot from the bottom of the right circle off a defensive zone turnover by Rangers defenseman Connor Mackey.

“The goal there is just creating pressure, and when you do that, mistakes happen,” Foegele said. “They made a mistake and it was a great play by ‘Ellsy’ to find me backdoor.”

The Senators outshot the Rangers 26-5 through two periods.

“When we had opportunities to get zone time, we struggled getting pucks through from the blue line,” Sullivan said. “Our last five games, for example, we’re averaging 46.6 shot attempts, shots in the mid-20s, and that’s just not enough to generate offense, to get consistent offense. So we’ve got to simplify the game, but some of it is just execution. You’ve got to get pucks through. You’ve got to get it by the shin pads. You’ve got to get your eyes up. We’re having a hard time getting pucks through. We’re hitting shin pads and they’re play killers. They end up out of our zone and that makes it tough.”

The Rangers, though, cut Ottawa’s lead to 2-1 when Sheary scored on New York’s seventh shot of the game at 7:03 of the third period. He went to the net and redirected Tye Kartye’s pass off the rush from below the right circle.

They managed two more shots on goal the rest of the way but none in the last 4:14 of regulation, including more than a minute and a half with Shesterkin pulled for an extra skater.

"Crazy,” Reimer said. “Sometimes you try and predict what kind of game it's going to be, and usually it doesn't work out very well. And as the game goes on, you're like, 'All right, more pucks will come here. More pucks will come here.' And, just, the boys played great. I think the pressure and the intensity that we played with, you saw it out there, and we just took away time and space, and the boys did an incredible job."

NOTES: The Senators are within two points of a playoff position for the first time since Jan. 3. They were 10 points out on Jan. 30. … Ottawa has five winning streaks of at least three games this season, its most in a season since it had six in 2016-17.