The Ottawa Senators are finally delivering in the playoffs after a decade of disappointing failures.
Jason Spezza scored the go-ahead goal and set up another by Daniel Alfredsson in a three-goal second period on Saturday night as Ottawa beat the New Jersey Devils 3-2 to win their Eastern Conference semi-final series in five games.
Goaltender Ray Emery, who showed no effects from a minor automobile accident in Ottawa on Friday, made 27 saves to cap a series in which he clearly outplayed Martin Brodeur, who set an NHL record with 48 wins this season but had only 21 saves in Game 5.
Scott Gomez scored twice for New Jersey in what may have been the final Devils' game at the Continental Airlines Arena. The three-time Stanley Cup champions are moving to a new arena in Newark next season, but they will leave the Meadowlands having not gotten past the second round in the last three postseasons.
The Senators will face either the Buffalo Sabres or New York Rangers in the conference final with the winner earning a trip to the Stanley Cup finals. While Ottawa has been to the playoffs in each of the last 10 years, it has never made it to the finals. The only time they made the conference finals, the Devils beat them in seven games en route to winning the Cup.
Whoever faces the Senators will go up against a team that continues to get great goaltending
Dany Heatley, playing with Spezza and Alfredsson, had two assists.
Antoine Vermette made the biggest play of Game 5, keeping the puck in the Devils' zone early in the second period and eventually tipping in a shot by defenseman Tom Preissing past Brodeur to tie the score at 1.
Red Wings 4, Sharks 1
At Detroit, Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg each scored a goal and set up two others, leading Detroit past San Jose and within one victory of reaching the Western Conference finals.
Detroit leads 3-2 and can end the series tonight in San Jose.
Datsyuk turned San Jose goalie Evgeni Nabokov's misplay into the winning goal late in the second period, and Nabokov didn't seem the same after that, surrendering a pair of third-period power-play goals.
Marcel Goc scored with 15:07 left in the first period to give the Sharks a 1-0 lead.
Zetterberg tied the score three minutes into the second period.
Mikael Samuelsson added an insurance goal nearly four minutes into the final period, slapping a one-timer past Nabokov. Tomas Holmstrom concluded the scoring with 13:46 left in the third.
Defenseman Mathieu Schneider broke his wrist in the first period and will miss the rest of the playoffs.
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