SENATORS PUT BRAKES TO SIX-GAME WINLESS STREAK
Nothing has been easy for the Ottawa Senators this season.
Naturally, these two points weren’t either.
That sigh of relief you heard in the city late Thursday night came from Canadian Tire Centre as the Senators halted their six-game winless skid with a 3-2 victory over the Arizona Coyotes in front of 9,762.
Nick Paul, Vladislav Namestnikov and Brady Tkachuk did the scoring on Coyotes goalie Antti Raanta, while only Jordan Oesterle and Oliver Ekman-Larsson replied for Arizona. Goaltender Marcus Hogberg picked up only his third win in 17 appearances this season, but was full value for this victory by making 32 stops to help the Senators pick up their first win since Jan. 28.
The Senators finished the game without alternate captain Mark Borowiecki. He limped to the dressing room after appearing to suffer a right-ankle injury with 11 minutes left in the third period in a collision with Lawson Crouse and, though coach D.J. Smith told reporters “it’s not as severe” as originally thought, he’s going to be out indefinitely.
“It’s more high ankle and muscular than a fracture,” Smith said. “We’ll know in the morning but sometimes those things can be just as bad. We’re happy because it looked really bad when you look at it on tape, but he’s a pretty tough guy.”
Paul’s seventh of the season, with 13:10 left in the third, turned out to be the difference in this game. Just when the Coyotes were pressing to tie it up, he restored a two-goal lead for the Senators at 3-1 by firing a shot from the top of the slot that Raanta couldn’t cover before it bounced into the net.
Hogberg allowed Oesterle to pull Arizona within a goal at 9:01 by allowing one that should have been stopped, but was able to shut the door from there.
“It was nice to get a win and I thought we played a full 60 minutes,” Hogberg said.
Opening a six-game homestand, the Senators were winless in six coming into this one, including Tuesday’s 3-0 loss to the Colorado Avalanche in Denver. There’s 10 days to the trade deadline and once that passes, all the uncertainty surrounding a roster with 10 unrestricted free agents will end.
“We carried over our game (from Colorado). Everybody was going tonight and there wasn’t one player that wasn’t going in the first period and it showed,” Paul said. “We were hitting, we were winning our battles, we were making plays and the team played really good.”
The Senators were outshot 22-18 through 40 minutes and Hogberg had made some big stops.
Making his second straight start and his fifth consecutive appearance in the Ottawa net, Hogberg was solid until the Coyotes got on the board on the power play with 3:20 left in the second to cut the Senators’ lead to 2-1 going into the third period.
Up until then, it looked like the Senators were going to weather the storm from the Coyotes.
That’s when Ekman-Larsson fired a shot from the point that appeared to deflect off Namestnikov’s stick and past Hogberg. It came with Nikita Zaitsev in the box and was unfortunate for Hogberg because up to that point, you had to wonder if the Coyotes were going to even get on the board.
While the Senators got off to a good start, it felt like they spent a lot of the second period defending, and that’s not a recipe for success. Hogberg had to be strong because the Coyotes were getting some good chances. He had to make a couple of huge stops or it could have been different.
The Senators know they’re not going to win every night, but they want to give themselves a chance and they were back on their heels in the second. They weren’t able to take advantage of a power play midway through the second that would have extended their lead to 3-0.
While the Senators have had their share of struggles this season, they got off to the kind of start they wanted by pulling out to a 2-0 lead in the first. Tkachuk tipped his 17th of the season, on shot by Thomas Chabot from the point, by Raanta to give Ottawa the two-goal lead only 6:41 into the opening frame.
A perfect backhand pass by Drake Batherson set up Namestnikov, who was going to the net, for his 12th of the season at 2:50 to open the scoring to give the Senators a rare lead. It’s only the 22nd time this season that they’ve scored the first goal of the night.
“That’s a huge win for us,” Tkachuk said. “We kind of struggled in the second when they put the pressure on us, but we hung in there and (Hogberg) was great again for us. I thought that was a really good effort by us and it was something we can build off.
“A couple of games we haven’t had great starts so that was a big emphasis and being back home in front of our crowd I think we were energized to start this homestand.”