Senators fall in preseason finale
It wasn’t pretty, but Ottawa Senators coach Guy Boucher couldn’t have been completely surprised.
The Senators were guilty of a variety of breakdowns Friday (captain Erik Karlsson led the way) concluding the exhibition schedule with a rather lacklustre 4-2 loss to the Buffalo Sabres.
Sam Reinhart, Markus Foligno, Derek Grant and Evander Kane scored for the Sabres. Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Kyle Turris scored for the Senators. Craig Anderson stopped 21 shots in the Senators net and Sabres goaltender Robin Lehner saved 30 shots.
Going into the contest, though, Boucher was wary of the many moving parts — including the insertion of Mark Stone and Zack Smith into the lineup after they missed most of training camp with injuries — as he aims to implement his new system.
“Right now, we’re at the beginning, we’re trying to cram in as much as we can for the first (regular season) game, so we’re not lost out there.”
Afterwards, he said the team had made at least some positive strides.
“We know the history of this team is that we gave up a lot of shots,” he said. “Tonight, the goal was to give up 25 or less and we did that. We can’t be perfect, but five-on-five, I think we got better. Even in the defensive zone, the guys weren’t running around as much.”
The Senators have five days before the season opener Wednesday against the Toronto Maple Leafs, but they’re going to need all that time to get ready.
The Senators buried themselves by giving up too many odd-man rushes. After Reinhart opened the scoring in the first, the Sabres capitalized on a pair of 2-on-1 breaks to pad the lead. With Karlsson caught up ice, Foligno finished off a pretty pass from Jack Eichel. Grant, an exSenator, scored shorthanded after Dion Phaneuf’s missed shot at the other end served as a breakout pass for the Sabres on an odd-man rush.
Jean- Gabriel Pageau replied only 20 seconds later, following some strong board work by Tom Pyatt.
In the third, Kane took advantage of Karlsson’s sloppy work in front of Anderson to make it 4-1. Turris completed the scoring, beating Lehner following a nifty give-andgo with Mike Hoffman.
“I don’t think they created anything on their own to win this game,” said Karlsson. “There are still things we’re obviously going to have to improve. We know that. The things we’ve been talking about before every game and every practice, we’ve been getting better at.”
Boucher used 11 forwards and seven defencemen, employing the extra blueliner to see whether defenceman Thomas Chabot could handle playing on his off side. Chabot didn’t stand out, but he held his own.
He was the lone man back on Foligno’s goal, but that odd man rush was set up because Karlsson was caught up ice. Chabot also picked up an assist on Pageau’s goal.
Boucher also wanted to see if Ryan Dzingel could continue to impress on a line with Derick Brassard and Bobby Ryan.
Dzingel dazzled by turning Cody Franson inside out at the Sabres blueline late in the second, beating Lehner but not the post. He was relatively quiet for most of the night.
Stone played his first game after suffering a concussion on the opening day of training camp. Smith was back for the first time since suffering a badly bruised foot in his one and only previous pre-season game.
As is custom, Stone stole the puck several times, but his offensive timing was a tad off. That’s not surprising, considering it was his first game since May, when he played for Canada at the world championships.
As the third period wound down, Smith saw some time on a line with Brassard and Ryan.
Boucher singled out defenceman Chris Wideman for a strong game, saying it was his best outing of the pre-season.