A WIN ON THE ROAD
Senators edge Philly 4-3
This trip wasn’t totally pointless for the Ottawa Senators after all.
The Senators were up to their old tricks Tuesday night at the Wells Fargo Center, spotting the Philadelphia Flyers a two-goal lead before erasing a third-period deficit to pull off a thrilling 4-3 victory to wrap up this four-game road trip on a winning note.
Matt Duchene scored the game-winner, while rookie Brady Tkachuk led the charge with a two-goal effort and Thomas Chabot had a two-point night. Goaltender Mike McKenna recorded his first win of the season as Radko Gudas, Jakub Voracek and Travis Konecny did the scoring for the Flyers.
Anthony Stolarz, the fifth goalie to suit up for Philly this season, couldn’t shut the door in the third. Duchene beat him with 2:59 left on the clock and the Flyers’ faithful booed loudly.
“It helps to stop the bleeding and get home to try to work our way back,” said Duchene, who scored a beauty by batting the puck out of mid-air on the backhand.
“You’ve got to have a winning streak at some point. We’ve got to climb back. We’ve got some work to do.”
Tkachuk’s second of the game with 6:34 to play tied it up. He tipped a shot by Chabot from the point past Stolarz. His eighth of the season with only 8:28 left in the game got the Senators back in it.
“The guys were playing hard in the third and we knew it was going to go our way,” said Tkachuk. “We believed in it and we trust the process. It was a good win for us.”
In the net for his first start since a 5-1 loss in Florida, McKenna — making only his fifth appearance since he was called up Oct. 31 — wasn’t all to blame for the fact the Senators were trailing 3-1 after 40 minutes because Ottawa was outshot 28-15.
“I don’t think it was ever lopsided. I can’t say enough about our guys and what we did in the third period,” said McKenna, who got his first win since April 3. “There’s never any quit in this team and it’s a lot of fun to play behind that when it happens.
“We’ve done this quite a bit. There’s no panic, there’s no frustration and we know we can do it. I just wish we’d be a little bit better early on to take leads into the final period.”
While the Senators worked hard, they were outplayed by the Flyers and didn’t test Stolarz much in the first two periods. Philadelphia took a 3-1 lead in the second when Gudas scored his first of the season at the six-minute mark.
The Flyers had pulled ahead 2-1 on a delayed penalty only 3:12 into the second. Voracek scored his 12th career goal in 27 games against the Senators when he beat McKenna from the slot with an extra attacker on the ice.
Senators coach Guy Boucher knew this would be a difficult test to wrap up this trip, with the club coming off a 6-4 loss to the Rangers less than 24 hours earlier at Madison Square Garden.
“It’s very impressive because all the odds were against us tonight,” Boucher said.
“It’s a long road trip. Guys are exhausted. I saw it (in the) second period.
“Back-to-back, end of a long road trip and it would have been easy to quit on this one.
“The players never quit. We always push, and we always make a third-period push to make it close when we’re coming back. We talked about making sure, even though we’re pushing, we don’t give a freebie and that’s what we had done (before).”
The Senators had to be pleased with their start: tied 1-1 after the first period even though they were outshot 11-6, but they got the saves they needed from McKenna.
Not long after the Flyers got on the board, the Senators tied it up 1-1 at 5:51, when Chabot fired home his seventh of the season. Stolarz didn’t look good on that shot.
The Senators fell behind fast. Konecny’s seventh of the season came on the Flyers’ first shot. He beat McKenna with a one-timer from the top of the slot on the glove side at 4:23.
TIME FOR A REST
Coming off a 29-save performance in Monday’s 4-2 loss to the Rangers, Craig Anderson played the backup role in Philly. His last break was Nov. 11 against the Florida Panthers and he had appeared in six straight games coming into this one.
Boucher didn’t want Anderson in the net on two straight nights.
“To be honest with you, unless (Monday) he had 22 shots against and he comes to me and says he wants (this) game then I would have put some thought into it, but I probably would have said no anyways at that point,” Boucher said.
“He wants to help, but you’ve got to be smart.”
THE LAST WORDS
Defenceman Mark Borowiecki, who is dealing with an undisclosed upper-body issue, sat for the third straight game and there were no changes against the Flyers.
He was placed on the injury-reserve list Tuesday, retroactive to Nov. 22. That means he would be eligible to suit up in Thursday’s game against the Rangers, but it sure sounds doubtful.
Placing Borowiecki on injury-reserve gives the Senators the ability to make call-ups from Belleville before facing New York.
The Flyers won’t be promoting former Los Angeles GM Dean Lombardi into Ron Hextall’s role after he was fired Monday.
President Paul Holmgren indicated after a news conference Tuesday the organization will be looking for outside help to replace Hextall.
This was the first NHL start by Stolarz since April 9, 2017.