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Tuesday, Mar. 21 7:00pm ET
Barrasso a hit in first home game | |||||
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BOX SCORE
KANATA, Ontario (AP) -- After allowing six goals in their last outing, the Ottawa Senators said they needed to give newly acquired goaltender Tom Barrasso more support. The Senators did just that Tuesday night against the Atlanta Thrashers, scoring six first-period goals en route to a 7-1 win in Barrasso's first game at the Corel Centre. "As a team, we certainly stepped our game up over Vancouver," said Barrasso, who lost to the Canucks on March 18 in his first game with Ottawa. "If we have any expectations to go anywhere in the playoffs, this is the way to go." Shawn McEachern and Andreas Dackell each had two goals and an assist and Barrasso made 23 saves. Joe Juneau, Radek Bonk and Jason York also scored. Vaclav Prospal had four assists and Daniel Alfredsson added two as the Senators set two franchise records. The six goals in the first eclipsed the team's previous high of five last set March 8 against Tampa Bay. Ottawa had also scored five goals in a period Nov. 25, 1999 against the Thrashers. Late in the period, the Senators then set a record for fastest three goals when McEachern, Dackell and York scored in a 1:20 span to surpass the club mark of 1:27 set Feb. 20, 1996 against St. Louis. "The first goal seems to be the big goal in these games, but we have to keep playing good defense," said McEachern, who now has 29 goals on the year. The Senators trail the Toronto Maple Leafs by five points for the Northeast Division lead. "Every game is big now, we can still catch Toronto," McEachern added. "We have to play desperate hockey." Donald Audette scored the lone goal for Atlanta, which did the Senators a favor with a 4-1 win at Toronto in its last game. "We wanted to play a structured game like we did against Toronto," said Thrashers coach Curt Fraser, whose club has won just three times in its last 30 games (3-25-2-1). "We weren't ready to pay the price like we were (against the Maple Leafs)." In his first game at Ottawa since an offseason trade sent him to Atlanta, Thrashers goaltender Damian Rhodes allowed goals on the second and third shots by his former team. He was briefly replaced by Norm Maracle less than four minutes into the game. Rhodes (4-11-2), who played 181 games from 1996-99 with the Senators, returned and allowed four more goals in the period. "I don't think anybody would have scripted that," said Rhodes, in his fifth game back after missing 45 with ankle and knee injuries. "It was pretty embarrassing. Hopefully, it will make me a better goaltender. I'm just going to let it go." Maracle started the second and finished the game, stopping 18 of 19 shots. At the other end, Barrasso made big saves off Mike Stapleton from the slot in the second and stopping Steve Guolla on a 2-on-1 in the third. Audette's goal came on a short-handed breakaway in the first. Barrasso was acquired at last week's trade deadline for Ron Tugnutt and defenseman Janne Laukkanen. "I like the way Tom performed," said Senators coach Jacques Martin. "He wasn't tested a whole lot, but I liked the way he handled the puck." Juneau left the game with an injured right knee and did not return. His status was not known. | ALSO SEE NHL Scoreboard Atlanta Clubhouse Ottawa Clubhouse RECAPS Boston 4 Tampa Bay 0
Ottawa 7
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