THE EFFORT WAS THERE BUT SENS COME UP SHORT
Goaltender Condon fails to deliver clutch saves as road swing opens with tough loss
Another frustrating loss in a frustrating season for the Ottawa Senators.
And you have to wonder when this latest losing streak is possibly going to stop.
A day after the trade deadline passed Monday, the Senators opened a difficult four-game road trip with a 3-2 loss to the Washington Capitals on Tuesday night at the Capital One Arena and extended their losing streak to five straight games.
Don’t fault the Senators for their effort because they didn’t get much in the way of saves from Mike Condon and only Mike Hoffman and Erik Karlsson were able to beat Washington backup Philipp Grubauer. With a goal and an assist, Karlsson recorded his 500th career point.
Evgeny Kuznetsov had two for the Caps while Tom Wilson also chipped in with a goal.
The Senators have won just twice in their past 10 games and this was the club’s third straight loss in regulation. They failed to score on two straight power plays in the third and went one-forseven in the game.
There has been a lot of uncertainty for many of these players in the last two months because of the trade deadline. As they prepared for this game, they were able to relax and know they would finish the year here, but that really didn’t seem to help matters.
“We showed a lot of character,” said winger Zack Smith. “The last couple of days haven’t been easy for our team but I thought we came out pretty good. If our special teams were a bit better that would have been a difference, but we were causing them to take penalties.”
The Senators were up for a difficult test against the Caps.
“We had high-end scoring chances and we didn’t bury them so that’s too bad,” said coach Guy Boucher. “We gave ourselves a chance. I liked the play of a lot of our guys. The work ethic was there.
“We’ve got to figure out with our new look who fits where and go from there. On those last power plays there weren’t enough shots. A lot of around and around and around and no pucks on net. No pucks on net and you’re 100 per cent sure of not scoring.”
Karlsson pulled the club to within a goal with 16:46 of the third with his sixth of the season to reach the 500-point milestone. He fired a shot by Grubauer on the short side from down low near the boards that he’d most certainly want back.
“We played well with them. They’re a good team We knew they were going to create quality scoring chances and they did,” Karlsson said. “We created a lot of good chances but we couldn’t score more than two and we had a lot more good chances than that.”
What the Senators really needed in the second period was a save or two from Condon.
Seriously, they were trailing 3-1 through 40 minutes and they had put up a pretty good fight but Condon couldn’t come up with a stop when needed. The back-breaker may have been a wraparound by Kuznetsov with 11.1 seconds in the second that restored the two-goal lead for the Caps.
Condon didn’t look good on that goal and it came only moments after the Senators weren’t able to capitalize on a two-man advantage for a span of 49 seconds. The Senators are short-handed after deals before the deadline but they’ve got to do a better job of creating chances in that situation.
Just as a power play was about to expire, Hoffman fired home his 18th of the season to cut the Caps lead to 2-1. He took a pass in the slot and fired it through Grubauer at 6:25 of the third to give the Senators a much-needed boost.
Only 43 seconds into the second period, Condon gave up another one he wanted back when Wilson fired a shot from the top of the slot that beat Condon on the stick side to give the Caps a 2-0 lead.
Trailing 1-0 after the first period, the Senators outshot the Caps 11-10, but Kuznetsov scored on a pretty passing play with Karlsson caught up ice to beat Condon with 4:44 left in the first. It was a 2-on-1 and you just can’t afford to give up those kinds of opportunities against the Caps.
The Senators lost defenceman Mark Borowiecki after the first period with a neck strain. He dropped the gloves with Wilson only 2:57 into the game and didn’t fare very well. Borowiecki left briefly, returned after serving his penalty and then didn’t come back.
The Senators face the Golden Knights Friday in Las Vegas.
We had high-end scoring chances and we didn’t bury them …