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Preissing, Emery lead Senators over Devils

May 1, 2007 - 4:10 AM OTTAWA (Ticker) -- Martin Brodeur lost his footing and the New Jersey Devils lost the game.

Defenseman Tom Preissing scored the go-ahead goal in the third period and Ray Emery turned aside 25 shots for the shutout as the Ottawa Senators upended the Devils, 2-0, Monday to take a two-games-to-one lead in the Eastern Conference semifinal series.

Jason Spezza added an empty-net goal for the Senators, who bounced back from a 3-2 double-overtime loss in Game Two.

Preissing's goal, which broke up a tremendous duel between Brodeur and Emery, came on what appeared to be one of the more harmless shots on goal in the game.

"Tommy (Preissing) took the shot on a tough angle and it found a hole," Ottawa's Jason Spezza said. "I think the hockey gods helped us out because we played so well."

Brodeur felt it was more than the hockey gods that played a part in the decisive tally. A shot by Mike Comrie caromed to Preissing along the right wing boards to the right of the faceoff circle.

As the two-time Vezina Trophy winner was positioning himself in the net, he had his skate clipped by the Senators' Mike Fisher at the edge of the crease and could only wave at Preissing's bad-angle wrist shot for a 1-0 lead with 15:14 left in the game.

"The guy hit me a little bit. It kind of threw me off, but I guess it wasn't enough for the referee to consider it," Brodeur said. "The ref gave me two versions. He said to me he didn't see it, but then he told my players I had enough time to recover. I don't understand when that comes from the same guy."

"I saw the replay, but I didn't know if I clipped him at first or not," Fisher said. "I definitely got a piece of him. Fortunately, Tom got a good shot off and it went in."

Brodeur said he didn't think the contact was intentional but he was not as forgiving of the referee.

"I'm sure (Fisher) didn't mean to do it. Mike's not the type of player to do something like that," Brodeur said. "The fact is if one of our players is standing in front of the net and gives a hook before the one-timer comes, we get an interference call. The goalie should be treated the same way."

It was the second goal and fifth point of the playoffs for Preissing, who had four shots on goal in Game Two.

"We didn't necessarily think it would be a fluky goal that would win it, but going into the third period both teams would have said that the first team to score was going to win the game," Preissing said. "The puck took a pretty strong bounce off the end boards and the sideboards a couple of times. My first thought was to get it on net and it happened to go in."

With the home crowd behind them, Emery made it stand up for his second straight shutout at home, helping the team that scores first in the playoffs improve to 41-13 this postseason.

Emery's best saves in the final session came on New Jersey's final power play of the night. He stopped Andy Greene's slap shot from the point with just under five minutes left and blocked a tip attempt by Sergei Brylin seconds later in recording his second shutout of the postseason.

"I didn't have much in the way of nerves," Emery said. "When you're in a game like that it's a lot of fun. I felt pretty good and I was seeing the puck really well. I was holding my ground, so they wouldn't get any deflected pucks past me. If they got a shot off, our defense was there to take away any rebounds."

With the Devils on the attack and Brodeur on the bench, Scott Gomez and Jamie Langenbrunner both had shots on Emery before Ottawa salted it away.

Spezza took a pass from Daniel Alfredsson and wristed a 40-foot shot into an open net for his fourth tally of the postseason.

"We're optimistic, but they're a very good team," Alfredsson said. "We can handle a lot of different situations as we've shown throughout the regular season. Hopefully tonight's game will build confidence. We did a lot of things well which we can fall back on. We just have to play our game and we're sure to win some."

Ottawa, the top team with the man advantage in the playoffs, was 0-for-4 while New Jersey, which ranks second in power-play proficiency, finished 0-for-5.

Brodeur, coming off a brilliant 43-save save performance in Game Two, carried the momentum into Game Three and finished with 33 saves.

He was especially sharp at the outset, turning back Comrie and Peter Schaefer in the opening minute and coming up big in the latter stages of the first period.

"It's just an example of why he's the best," Langerbrunner said. "He stepped and played huge. He gave us more than a chance for us to win tonight. We let him down, but I'm sure he'll bounce back and give us another chance in Game Four."