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Senators Silence Colorado's Hartley


Beginner's luck was not on Bob Hartley's side.

Wade

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  • Redden's ricochet goal with 1:22 remaining broke a tie game as the Ottawa Senators spoiled Hartley's NHL coaching debut with a 4-3 win over the Colorado Avalanche Saturday night.

    Redden's shot from the left circle bounced off Avalanche defenseman Alexei Gusarov and over the right shoulder of goaltender Patrick Roy, who had stopped a bad-angle slap shot by Shawn McEachern just seconds earlier.

    "I guess you could call it a good bounce for us, to get a bounce like that," Redden said. "We worked hard, and when you work hard good things happen. I'll take it."

    Ottawa defenseman Chris Phillips, who had five goals in his rookie season last year, scored twice as the Senators beat Colorado on the road for the first time in 12 games (1-10-1).

    "I am on pace for 50," Phillips said. "I got a couple of lucky bounces, and if I want to keep this pace it would be unbelievable."

    Hartley, hired after Marc Crawford walked away from the final year of his contract last spring, nearly broke even in his debut after Milan Hejduk's first career goal tied the game 3-3 three minutes into the final period.

    "It's disappointing, but the good thing is that there's 81 games left," Hartley said.

    Hejduk, who earned a spot on the Colorado roster with five preseason goals, also had an assist, and Joe Sakic added two goals and an assist for the Avalanche.

    "It's kind of overwhelming, the feeling of the goal," Hejduk said. "I have a very good feeling about the first goal, but I'm disappointed because the team lost the game."

    Trailing 2-1, Ottawa killed a double-minor to open the second period and tied the game at 9:54 when Phillips skated down the left side and squeezed a wrist shot between he post and Roy's stick.

    The Senators converted a four-minute power play of their own to take a 3-2 lead on a hustling power-play goal by Andreas Dackell at 10:50. With the puck sitting at the base of Roy's left knee pad, Dackell charged in ahead of Colorado's Claude Lemieux and stuffed it into the net.

    "We were aggressive and got a lot of shots," Redden said. "The big part of that was our power play. We applied pressure on every one of them. The power play got us rolling and got the momentum going our way."

    Colorado opened the scoring at 6:28 of the first period when Sakic rebounded Keith Jones' shot in front of the net and slapped it past Ottawa goaltender Damian Rhodes.

    Ottawa took advantage of a 5-on-3 power play to tie the game on Phillips' slap shot from the top of the left circle at 12:11. Sakic put the Avalanche back on top 3:26 later, taking a crossing pass from Gusarov and scoring from just outside the crease.

    "I liked the way we came out," Hartley said. "But you give up a 5-on-3 power play, two four-minute high-sticking penalties, it cut our legs down and we had to fight back just to regain the momentum."

    © 1998 SportsLine USA, Inc. All rights reserved

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