UNLUCKY 13 FOR SENS
Jackets win 7-6 in overtime
The Ottawa Senators chose to emphasize the big picture after Sunday’s sloppy, mistake-ridden, defence-be-damned 7-6 overtime defeat to the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Tennis fans might appreciate the score line — with Cam Atkinson delivering the tiebreaking breakaway goal in overtime, his second of the game — but it was an NHL coach’s nightmare.
It was a night full of twists and turns and massive momentum shifts. The game was tied on five different occasions. In the third period alone, the Senators blew a two-goal lead and the Blue Jackets lost a one-goal edge.
Mike Hoffman and Zack Smith each scored twice, with Mark Stone and Kyle Turris also scoring for the Senators. Nick Foligno, Scott Harrington, Zach Werenski, Lukas Sedlak and Matt Calvert scored the other Blue Jackets goals.
It was a night where neither Senators goaltender Mike Condon (seven goals on 29 shots) nor Blue Jackets counterpart Joonas Korpisalo (six goals on 34 shots) was ever comfortable.
As ugly as it was, Senators coach Guy Boucher wasn’t about to throw darts at anyone because the club’s three-game winning streak came to an end.
He chalked it up to the fatigue of two teams playing on consecutive nights and chose to look at the big picture. With the point earned in the overtime loss, the Senators completed the week with seven of a possible eight points.
“I don’t want to forget about it,” Boucher said. “We just got a big point against a huge opponent on back to back (nights) in a tough week.”
The Senators are sitting pretty, second in the Atlantic Division standings. They’re three points up on Boston with five games in hand. Toronto is four back, but has played one fewer game than Ottawa. Florida is a distant six points back and has played three more games than the Senators.
“It was a little bit fluky, both teams, we both kind of played loose,” said Hoffman, who now has seven goals and two assists in his past seven games. “The team that made the least mistakes was going to win the game. But to come out of this one with a point, after a very good road trip for ourselves, we don’t really want to think about this one too much. At least we got something
out of it.”
While the Blue Jackets left Ottawa with a victory, Columbus coach John Tortorella was hardly ecstatic about the contest. He adopted a rather sarcastic tone.
“What are you going to ask me about that masterpiece? I don’t know what to tell you,” he said. “As a coach, you’ve just to grin and bear it.”
When Smith and Foligno exchanged goals in the opening 1:16, it was a sign of goal scoring free-for-all to come.
By the midpoint of the first period, the clubs had combined for four goals on nine shots.
Werenski’s power play goal 56 seconds into the second period gave the Blue Jackets a 3-2 lead. But the Senators rallied for three second-period goals of their own — two from Hoffman and one from Stone — to carry a 5-3 lead into the third.
That edge, however, disappeared in a 21-second span early in the third on goals from Sedlak and Calvert.
Then Atkinson’s first goal of the game — a wobbling pop-up that Condon simply missed — put the Blue Jackets up 6-5 with 9:10 remaining.
But the Senators rallied yet again, with Turris finding another hole in Korpisalo, beating him from inside the blue line on a Senators power play with 7:21 remaining, tying the game 6-6.
“It was roller coaster, that’s for sure,” said Turris, playing in career game number 500.
Turris says it was frustrating the Senators couldn’t hold on to their third-period lead, but it was the kind of game where anything and everything could happen. He figured he could have put the game away if he had buried a couple of other opportunities.
“You’re trying to not stop shooting and creating offensively, but at the same time, you’re realizing you don’t have to score to win anymore. You just have to play smart and chip pucks out and make sure you’re locking down defensively. You want to do a bit of both.”
What are you going to ask me about that masterpiece? I don’t know what to tell you. As a coach, you’ve just to grin and bear it.