SENATORS NO MATCH FOR HUNGRY PENGUINS
So this is what rock bottom looks like for the Ottawa Senators.
Not where they wanted to be and certainly not where they expected to be.
In a city where they were only one goal away from a trip to the Stanley Cup final last spring, the Senators locked up 30th place in the league with an ugly 4-0 loss to the two-time Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday night at PPG Paints Arena.
The only solace for the Senators is they now know they’ll have the second-best odds at 13.5 per cent of winning the NHL’s draft lottery on April 28 in Toronto for the right to select Swedish superstar blue-liner Rasmus Dahlin. Only the 31st-ranked Buffalo Sabres, who will have an 18.5% opportunity, own better odds of landing the top pick.
The Senators weren’t able to beat Penguins backup goaltender Casey DeSmith in the shutout loss. Sidney Crosby, Patric Hornqvist, Jake Guentzel and Phil Kessel were able to get pucks past Craig Anderson, who closed out the year with a 23-25-6 record.
“We finished the last year on a tough note and we wanted to get a win for ourselves,” said winger Tom Pyatt. “We knew they were going to come out hard. We played pretty well, I thought. We got our chances. The ones they got they capitalized on.
“Considering where we (were) last year none of us expected that, to finish 30th, and it’s been a long disappointing year. There’s not much to say, everybody is pretty disappointed.”
To make matters worse, the Senators will finish the season Saturday night against the Boston Bruins without defenceman Ben Harpur, who left the game with a separated right shoulder in the second period.
Playing their final regularseason game, the Penguins were still trying to lock up home ice in the first round of the playoffs, and they needed a victory badly. Coach Guy Boucher was expecting a difficult test and the Senators had their hands full.
“We talked (about) it before the game and we just took too many penalties,” said defenceman Cody Ceci. “It’s tough right now with the guys we’re missing. We have one (game) left. It’s back-to-back but we’re going to try to finish this season out the right way.”
It was Kessel who gave the Penguins a 3-0 lead at 6:55 of the third period to seal the victory for Pittsburgh, with Hornqvist later scoring his 29th at 16:53 to give Pittsburgh a 4-0 lead.
Trailing 2-0 after 40 minutes, the Senators had their chances against DeSmith and couldn’t cash in on the 19 shots they fired his way. The Penguins took advantage of what they were able to get and the picture was looking pretty bleak for Ottawa headed to the third.
Discipline has been an issue for the Senators all season and you can’t let a power play like that of the Penguins go to work so many times. It turns out to be costly, and it was on both goals. Only one counted as a goal with the man advantage, but essentially both of them were.
While the Senators killed off a Pittsburgh power play and Tom Pyatt was stopped by DeSmith on a breakaway, Guentzel made it 2-0 Pittsburgh just as time expired on the man advantage. He banked it in off Anderson from below the goal-line at 7:31 and that’s the way both goals were scored.
Ottawa opened the second trying to kill off a double-minor assessed to Ryan Dzingel for highsticking Riley Sheahan with 1:23 left in the first and it didn’t take long until Crosby struck with his ninth of the season at 1:25 of the second to open the scoring.
That goal also came from below the goal-line, as Crosby banked it off Anderson and into the Senators’ net.
The Senators played to a scoreless tie with the Penguins through 20 minutes, despite being outshot 8-6 in the first period.
Anderson made his best stop on Crosby, in alone, early in the game and there wasn’t a whole lot of pressure from there. The Senators didn’t get a lot on DeSmith, who was making a rare start, and the Penguins looked frustrated because they weren’t able to get ahead in this one.
The Penguins’ faithful were livid when Malkin was assessed a double-minor for slashing and cross-checking Zack Smith. Though Smith retaliated and even tried to get at Malkin on the Pittsburgh bench after the ugly incident, the Senators walked away unscathed.
Unfortunately, the Senators didn’t do anything with the fourminute power play, and ended it by taking a bench minor for too many men on the ice. That’s the 17th bench minor the Senators have been assessed this season and 15 of those were for too many men.
“We got our chances but they had theirs and they took advantage of them,” said centre JeanGabriel Pageau. “We have one more left and we’re going to try to finish on a good note so we’ve got to be ready.”
The Senators were without captain Erik Karlsson for the second straight game. He is in Ottawa on personal leave with his wife Melinda after the couple lost their son last month, and it sounds doubtful that he’ll suit up in the season finale in Boston on Saturday night.
Asked if Karlsson would join the team for the game against the Bruins, Boucher said: “I don’t think so.”