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Sens coach hopes team gets over ‘stage fright’

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The Pittsburgh Penguins made things look fairly easy against the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday, taking a 1-0 series lead thanks to a 4-1 win. Sens head coach Paul MacLean told the Ottawa Citizen that it might be good to get the team’s worst game out of the way early.

“If we had any kind of stage fright or youthful jitters, that should be behind us and now it’s up to us to make it a series,” MacLean said.

Speaking of youthful jitters, Erik Karlsson was his usually frank self about the game and a turnover in specific.

“We want to come out of our end with the puck, but you know, sometimes [expletive] happens,” Karlsson said.

“They played a little bit better than we did today. We’ve got to come out better next game and be more prepared. They scored an early goal and that set us back a bit.”

It’s too easy to blame one player in a pretty lopsided game, yet some might point to Craig Anderson. The Sens’ No. 1 goalie took some responsibility for the defeat.

“It wasn’t good enough, we have to be better and that starts with myself, giving my team a chance to win,” Anderson said. “You’ve got to lead by example, go out there and do the job ... you can always be better. At the end of the day, I didn’t stop ‘em.”