New York. Suddenly, Erik Bernstrom is as fiery as the title indicates.
He scored for the second time in a few days as Ottawa won a must-win game against Florida last night.
– I’ve been practicing my shot and I’m happy when I see the pucks come in, the 23-year-old told Sportbladet from Småland after the 5-2 win.
It’s not primarily for his offensive production that Eric Bernstrom has established himself in the Ottawa Senators’ backup lineup in recent seasons, but as a defensive rock.
Prior to the solo performance against Tampa last Thursday, he’d only scored one goal all season, at the start of February, but the near goal added a distinct flavor because in tonight’s super important home game against the Florida Panthers, Ben Ekshaw struck again – this time on the field. Bounce back into the power game at the end of the first half.
– Yes, it’s fun to be able to score goals in slightly different ways, says Eric over the phone from the Canadian capital.
– I’ve been practicing my shot and it’s paying off, I’m happy when I see pucks come in.
With the victory, the Senators gained a bit of a foothold in the Eastern line drama again. They’re five points ahead of Pittsburgh for their last wild card, with eight games to play, and they’re not about to give up under any circumstances.
– No, not at all. We play one game at a time in this situation but we have a really good team with a lot of goalscorers so we’ll give it everything and I think it can be good,” says Eric.
For their part, the Panthers have now lost four straight regular-time games and have completely lost the momentum they had just a week or so ago.
– The Senators played their part tonight, we’ve never been to the same level, coach Paul Morris sighs.
However, Swedish defender Gustav Forsling is nothing to be ashamed of, he scored both goals for the Cats.
Neither Toronto nor the New York Rangers played last night, but with both Florida and Buffalo losing – the latter 4-3 to Montreal on penalties – both clinched their playoff spots.
Thus, there are only three open territories left in the East and seven teams fighting for it: Tampa, New York Islanders, Pittsburgh, Florida, Buffalo, Ottawa and Washington.
Among them, the Islanders got on much safer ground last night with a derby-worthy 5-1 victory over the New Jersey Devils. With that said, they have six points down to the dark.
Pierre Engvall again defended with a great effort in the team’s hottest series and scored his 16th goal of the season.
Minnesota moved to the top of the Central Division with a 5-1 home win against Seattle and once again the first series of Joel Erickson Ek, Marcus Johansson and Matt Poldy was outstanding.
The latter completed another hat-trick and both Swedes scored two assists each.