Craig Anderson's Dominant Ottawa Debut

Craig Anderson was one of the surprise performers during the 2009-10 season with the Colorado Avalanche, at times standing on his head, helping to lead the Avs to the playoffs and pushing their opening round series with San Jose to six games. For as surprising and strong as his play was a season ago, this year had to be considered equally disappointing.

Earlier this week Avs shipped him to Ottawa in an exchange of struggling goaltenders that landed them Brian Elliott. On Saturday, Anderson made his Ottawa debut in the Battle of Ontario and put on a dominating performance in the Senators 1-0 shootout victory against the Maple Leafs.

He was by far the best player on the ice and stopped all 47 shots he faced through regulation and overtime, and then slammed the door in the shootout, stopping Tyler Bozak and Mikhail Grabovski, while Nikolai Kulemin's effort came up short when the puck rolled off his stick. Jason Spezza scored the lone goal for Ottawa in the second round.

He's not going to have a shot to play in the playoffs with Ottawa -- the Senators are all but eliminated and currently in an everything must go(!) tear down of the big league roster -- but he's still playing for a contract as an upcoming unrestricted free agent. Whether it's with the Senators or another team, he's in audition mode right now in an effort to show last year wasn't a fluke. Saturday's game against Toronto was a great start.

His best work of the night came in overtime, with the Senators killing a penalty, when he made a pair of point blank leg saves on Phil Kessel while moving in completely opposite directions.

For a game that involved two teams with little to no playoff hopes for this season -- and in the process of breaking their teams apart -- it was pretty entertaining hockey game with some excellent goaltending from Anderson and Toronto's James Reimer.

The win is only the third for Ottawa in its past 22 games, while it also keeps the Senators out of the bottom spot in the league standings. Edmonton had jumped over Ottawa earlier in the day with a 5-3 win over Atlanta, but the Senators, for at least one more night, avoid the NHL's basement.