Cam Ward collected his first victory since missing nearly a month of action with one of those pesky lower-body injuries — and he did so in sprawling style.
With both the underwhelming Ottawa Senators and Carolina Hurricanes trying to gain footing in the Eastern Conference, Ward stole the show Sunday, making 35 stops — two of them on this Erik Karlsson-led rush.
After making the initial kick save on Derek Grant’s snap from the wing, Ward flashes the paddle and lunges cross-crease, knocking Colin Greening’s sure rebound conversion away and stamping out Karlsson’s point streak at five games.
“I had goosebumps after that one,” Ward told reporters after the victory, admitting the rebound was a bad one on his part. True, the struggling Greening (24 GP, 0 G) should’ve buried that puck, but Ward deserves props for the desperate paddle.
“We play this game for a living, but when you make a save like that, I turn into a little kid,” he said. “It also was a sigh of relief to get that save because that was a big part of the game in the first period.”
Since hopping off the IR, Ward has stopped 96 of 103 pucks he’s faced. The goalie now has a .919 save percentage — not bad considering the Hurricanes’ weak defence — and a slim shot at scrambling his way onto Team Canada.
Watch: Cam Ward talks about his save