OTTAWA, ON – Claude Giroux gave Ottawa Senators fans a night to remember Monday evening and a 3-2 win over the Carolina Hurricanes was just a small part of the celebrations.
With a goal and an assist in the first period, Giroux joined an illustrious group to reach 1,000 career NHL points. He then added the winning goal in the third period.
Giroux becomes the 96th player to achieve the impressive milestone.
“Yeah, I mean, I have a lot of family here right now,” said Giroux. “So, it’s special and my wife and my two boys are here and my parents and it was really cool.”
The 35-year-old entered the game needing two points to hit the momentous marker and took less than one period to make it happen.
Giroux picked up point 999 with his 33rd goal of the season at the five-minute mark of the period and number 1,000 came on an assist when he set up Tim Stutzle with under three minutes remaining in the period.
Captain Brady Tkachuk had a secondary assist on the play and motioned to his teammates to join him on the ice to celebrate the moment.
“Yeah, just trying to keep my emotions intact and you know, I knew it was going to happen that they were going to come all on the ice, but to actually happen it was definitely a little different, but it was special,” admitted Giroux.
Helping Giroux achieve the milestone on home ice was important for Tkachuk and Stutzle, who hold their linemate in high regard.
“Thankfully we did it in the first period,” joked Tkachuk. “So, for me, for the both of us, just to kind of contribute, just a little part of his unbelievable career. Honestly we’ve talked about it, it’s truly special for the both of us.”
Giroux scored his second of the night midway through the third to give Ottawa (39-35-7) a 3-2 lead, and the win, tying his career-high of 34 set in 2017-18.
Giroux credits his linemates for much of his success this past season and admits their youth has been invigorating.
“They’re a couple goofs and we have a lot of, I don’t know if I’m supposed to say that word, but you know, we have so much fun every day,” said Giroux. “They make me feel young. They give it to me pretty much every day, so I personally like it. So it’s fun coming to the rink every day.”
Mads Sogaard was impressive in a 27-save performance to ensure the victory. He made a couple big saves in the dying seconds to keep the lead intact.
“I think we just battled as a team,” said Sogaard. “We knew, unfortunately, this was the last home game of the year and we wanted to get it done for the fans.”
The Hurricanes (50-21-9), who had a game in hand, hold a one-point lead on the New Jersey Devils for first place in the Metropolitan Division, but failed to make the most of the opportunity.
“We started just terribly,” said Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour. “Never really got going at all. Give the other team a lot of credit — they played a real good game. But we were just in quicksand.”
With the playoffs just over a week away the Hurricanes were disappointed with their effort.
“We weren’t playing with a lot of speed, we weren’t playing with a lot of aggression,” said Jaccob Slavin.
“I mean, we’re a puck-pressuring team, and when we did have the puck we weren’t doing what we normally do. We get it in deep, we forecheck, we grind them down low and we didn’t really have any grind time in the (offensive) zone today like we normally do.”
Trailing 2-1 to start the third Hurricanes’ defenceman Brent Burns tied the game with a power-play goal.
Carolina had a two-man advantage for 45 seconds midway through the period, but failed to capitalize. With time remaining in the second power play Stefan Noesen took a goaltender interference penalty and was given an additional unsportsmanlike penalty.
Giroux went on to give the Senators the lead scoring four-on-four.
Leading 2-0 the Senators had a goal called back early in the second when it was ruled offside and the Hurricanes cut the lead in half when Martin Necas dropped a pass back to Brett Pesce who beat Sogaard high.
