DETROIT (AP) Out of the playoffs and sinking fast with one win in 14 games a week ago Adidas Max Pacioretty Jersey , the Detroit Red Wings could have embraced tanking to bolster their chances in the NHL draft lottery.Instead, they launched a winning streak.Jimmy Howard stopped 31 shots for his first shutout of the season as the Red Wings beat the Ottawa Senators 2-0 on Saturday for their third straight win.Dylan Larkin and Andreas Athanasiou scored to help Detroit gets its longest winning streak since a season-high four-game stretch Dec. 29 to Jan. 5.”We have a job to do every night and every day, and we’ve got a lot of young guys in here,” Larkin said. ”Every day is an audition and guys are trying to earn whatever it might be, whether it is more ice time next year,whatever.”Your position on this team and in this league has to be earned every day.”Howard’s best save was a sliding left pad stop on a second-period breakaway by Ottawa forward Ryan Dzingel.”It feels good,” Howard said after his 24th career shutout. ”It took 59 games, unreal, but at the same time the guys in front of me did a really great job, allowing me to see the puck.”Mike Condon finished with 25 saves for the Senators, who were blanked for the ninth time this season.”I can’t comment on the offense, because if that’s the case then all the offensive guys could comment on the goaltending Adidas Nic Dowd Jersey ,” Condon said. ”That’s a slippery slope.”Everyone’s working their hardest. Everyone’s trying to get a couple in there.”After a scoreless opening period, Detroit got on the board at 4:10 of the second. Taking advantage of a bad pinch by Senators defenseman Christian Wolanin, Anthony Mantha fed a pass across to Larkin on a 2-on-1 break, and Larkin flipped the puck in as Condon lunged desperately across his goal crease. It was Larkin’s fifth goal in the last seven games. He scored nine times in the first 72 games.”That was a horrible play on my part,” Wolanin said. ”It cost us the first goal and eventually the game winner.”Athanasiou increased the margin to 2-0 at 4:29 of the third. Using Evgeni Svechnikov as a screen, Athanasiou fired a high shot past Condon.NOTES: Ottawa captain Erik Karlsson remained one point away from reaching 60 for the sixth time in his career. … The Senators, who play three of their final four games away from home, fell to 11-22-5 on the road – one win more than Montreal for the fewest in the NHL. Last season, the Senators won 22 games away from home, fifth-best in the league. … The Red Wings improved to 17-6-2 in their last 25 games against Ottawa. That includes five straight wins by Detroit at home. Ottawa’s last road victory in in the series was a 3-1 decision on Oct. 30, 2015. … Henrik Zetterberg remained one point from breaking a tie with Sergei Fedorov (954) for fifth on the Red Wings’ all-time scoring list.UP NEXTSenators: Host Winnipeg on Monday night in their final home game of the season.Red Wings: At Columbus on Tuesday night. WASHINGTON (AP) Brooks Orpik went 824 days between goals before scoring the winner in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final.In that span, the bruising defenseman blocked 446 shots and dished out even more hits. That won’t make him look more valuable on the stat sheet but certainly builds up respect among Washington Capitals teammates.”He plays extremely hard Adidas Seth Griffith Jersey ,” forward Tom Wilson said. ”They don’t make `em like Brooks Orpik anymore.”They really don’t.As the NHL shifts toward speed and skill and away from size and physicality, defensemen like Orpik and Deryk Engelland of the Vegas Golden Knights are becoming rare species in hockey. Mobile puck-movers like Erik Karlsson are prized and behemoths like Hal Gill are gone.And yet Orpik and Engelland have helped their teams reach the Stanley Cup Final and shown there’s still value in having a big defensive defenseman along for the ride – especially this time of year.”In the playoffs, teams get to the net a lot harder,” Capitals coach Barry Trotz said. ”Everybody’s jamming things at the net and everybody’s getting numbers to the net and trying to create chaos around them. Sometimes those stay-at-home guys are very valuable. They can box you out, they can protect your goaltender in terms of not have to have second and third shots, those type of things. So they’re quite valuable in series where there’s a lot of net pressure and a lot of low play.”Analytics don’t tell that story. Defensemen like Orpik routinely start in the defensive zone and are placed in positions to be on the ice for more shots against than shots for, so the numbers aren’t pretty.Orpik has the eighth-worst Corsi percentage – a measure of shot attempts that simulates puck possession stats – among defensemen to play in at least 10 playoff games. Yet he has been incredibly effective at age 37 by clearing space in front of the net, delivering hits and clearing the puck out of the defensive zone.”I know Brooksie from Pittsburgh and he stays in tremendous shape,” Engelland said. ”You try not to have guys standing around in front of the net too much and give your goalie some room. He’s a physical presence back there and maybe gives guys a second less to think with the puck, I guess you could say, and maybe rush a play or something if they don’t want to get hit. It’s always good to have that on the back end.”Orpik scored the Game 2 winner – his first goal of any kind since Feb. 26, 2016 and first in the playoffs with the Capitals – and didn’t even remember celebrating. He’s not known for scoring Adidas Jack Roslovic Jersey , which made Washington’s T.J. Oshie all the more excited for Orpik putting the puck in the net.”I haven’t yelled that loud for someone to score a goal since (Alex Ovechkin) scored one of his milestones,” Oshie said. ”To see him get rewarded with a goal at a big time, it makes me feel good.”Washington goaltender Braden Holtby said defensemen like Orpik are usually his favorite players because of what they do in front of the net. Gifted two-way defensemen like the Capitals’ John Carlson and Golden Knights’ Nate Schmidt find a way to do a little bit of everything, but they don’t have the size and strength of the 6-foot-3, 217-pound Orpik, who knows what his job is.”I don’t think necessarily you want to change a lot,” Orpik said. ”I think if you try to get six defensemen that all play the exact same way, in my opinion you’re not going to be a very balanced team or you’re not going to go very far. You try to do what you’ve always done, not just with the way the game has changed. I think as you get older too if you don’t change certain things like the way you train or the way you play, you’re going to get pushed out, so you have to be able to adapt.”Maybe a decade from now there will be less of an emphasis on hulking defensemen hired to hit more than score. But Orpik and Engelland still represent the kind of throwback players teammates want to have around.”They compete, they make it hard on guys in front of the net Adidas Laurent Brossoit Jersey ,” Holtby said. ”They’re always thinking defensively with how they can help the team that way.”Off the ice, there’s more players like Orpik and Engelland can do. Schmidt, who broke into the NHL as Orpik’s teammate in Washington, said Engelland has helped young Shea Theodore develop.”They help guys on the mental aspect of things more than anything,” Schmidt said. ”I think that’s where they really come into play. That really translates to guys being able to flourish on the ice.”Orpik has had the same impact on defensive partner Christian Djoos, who has been stable during this playoff run. Then there’s the importance Orpik has as an alternate captain and leader in the Capitals’ locker room in his fourth season with the team.”The amount of leadership, the amount of everything that Brooks Orpik brings to this team, you can’t describe it,” Wilson said. ”We’re pretty privileged to have him around. He’s a rock back there.”—More Stanley Cup coverage: https://apnews.com/tag/StanleyCupFinals—