SENATORS CAN’T MUZZLE BRUINS’ BIG TRIO
Boston power play takes advantage of dumb penalties to clinch victory
The Ottawa Senators fell apart at the seams Tuesday night.
Trying to extend their winning streak to four games, the Senators were their own worst enemies in a 4-1 loss to the Boston Bruins on Tuesday night in front of 15,265 fans at the Canadian Tire Centre.
The Senators were left licking their wounds after this latest loss to the Bruins as David Pastrnak had two goals and two assists, while Patrice Bergeron (three points), Brad Marchand (two points) and David Backes also chipped in.
Only Thomas Chabot was able to beat Tuukka Rask on the 39 shots he faced as the Bruins scored their second straight win over the Senators this season. Ottawa didn’t give goalie Craig Anderson much help as they closed out this five game homestand with a 3-2-0 record.
The Senators talked about shutting down the Bruins’ big line of Bergeron, Pastrnak and Marchand, but didn’t manage to do so. That trio now has 20 points in two games against Ottawa this season. They piled up 11 points in a 6-3 win over the Senators on Oct. 8 in Beantown.
“It was more of a battle of the special teams and they were better tonight,” said centre Zack Smith. “We kind of felt out of it at the end when they had a threegoal lead, but up until then, we felt like we were in it and we were still creating chances.
“I thought we had a lot of momentum.”
Unlike the last game, the Senators actually gave themselves a chance in this one — for 38 minutes. After that, it turned ugly.
Pastrnak scored his second of the game at 5:31 of the third period to give the Bruins a 4-1 lead, and that was pretty much it for the home side.
It’s the oldest cliché in the book, but dumb penalties don’t help. A holding penalty and a too many men on the ice infraction late in the second period turned out to be costly. The Bruins scored twice on the power play in a span of 71 seconds to pull out to a 3-1 early in the third.
Bergeron scored with the man advantage only 20 seconds into the final frame to extend Boston’s lead to two goals. Earlier, Backes scored on a 5-on-3 at 19:09 of the second to give the Bruins a 2-1 lead in a game in which the Senators had been playing well.
“That’s where the game was played,” said coach Guy Boucher. “I thought we had a terrific second period. We were fast, we were charging and we were attacking hard.
“We couldn’t get that second power-play goal. They got that 5-on-3 and then they score again to start the period. Those are tough to deal with, for sure.”
Until then, this looked like a game between two division rivals battling it out as the Senators went toe-to-toe with the Bruins.
The Senators outshot Boston 24-22 through two periods.
With the Senators on the power play, Chabot one-timed a pass from Bobby Ryan by Rask from the point to get Ottawa on the board at the 17:51 mark of the second period. Until then, it looked like the Sens weren’t going to be able to get anything past Rask.
The pace of the first frame was frantic as the Bruins pulled out to a 1-0 lead. Both teams used speed to create scoring chances as Boston outshot Ottawa 15-10.
It was the Bruins who struck first, with Pastrnak beating Anderson from the top of the slot at 11:17. That scoring chance was the result of a turnover in the Ottawa zone and it’s possible that Anderson lost sight of the puck.
“Special teams is a big part of the game and we’ve got to clean those up going forward,” said Anderson, who faced 32 shots. “I thought (5-on-5) we were pretty good. We were definitely taking away their time and space.”
BOROWIECKI COULD BE IN TROUBLE
If the loss wasn’t bad enough, there could be repercussions for a first-period incident involving Senators defenceman Mark Borowiecki.
A day after complaining about a hit by the Canadiens’ Brendan Gallagher on Saturday, Borowiecki could be in trouble with the department of player safety. He elbowed Boston defenceman Urho Vaakanainen in the face in the first period and he left after the period with a concussion.
“They’ll look at it. It’s a flying elbow,” said Boston coach Bruce Cassidy. “It looked fairly deliberate, but that’s not for me to decide.”
OFF THE GLASS
The Senators were hopeful they would have defenceman Cody Ceci back from an upper body injury against Boston but he wasn’t quite ready to return.
“We’d rather wait because we don’t play again until Friday,” Ceci said.
That will give Ceci, who hasn’t had any real contact in practice, a couple of days to skate with the team before the Senators fly to Denver on Thursday to start a three-game road swing.
THE LAST WORDS
Centre Matt Duchene liked the challenge of going facing Bergeron.
“He’s going to go down as one of the best two-way centres that has ever played in this league,” Duchene said.
“It’s a big challenge to play against him, offensively and defensively. Playing against him forces you to be a better player to. I enjoy the challenge.”