First-period meltdowns undercut Sens on road
Down 2-0 in Anaheim at three minutes, and buried 4-0 by the 12-minute mark
LOS ANGELES Tuesday was a dream of a night for Anaheim Ducks winger Nicolas Deslauriers. His threegoal first-period explosion in the Ducks 5-2 defeat of the Ottawa Senators put him in the organization’s record books, alongside the likes of the greatest names in Anaheim’s history, including Teemu Selanne and Ryan Getzlaf.
It was a once-in-a-lifetime NHL experience for Deslauriers, a former member of the Gatineau Olympiques, previously better known in the big leagues for his work with his gloves off than on.
But what wasn’t a once-in-a-lifetime experience was the Senators’ atrocious starts on the road.
They were down 2-0 before the game was three minutes old and had been buried 4-0 by the 12-minute mark.
While they defeated the San Jose Sharks 2-1 in overtime to begin the current five-game road trip, it must be pointed out that goaltender Craig Anderson was stellar in the opening minutes of that contest, making 12 saves in the opening eight minutes alone to keep the game scoreless.
In the Senators’ previous road game, a romp of a 7-3 victory by the Pittsburgh Penguins, Ottawa was down 2-0 at the 1:39 mark and went into the first intermission facing a 3-1 deficit.
Some of the above is due to the post-trade deadline roster flux, including the departures of veteran centre Jean-Gabriel Pageau and defenceman Dylan DeMelo, along with the lower-body injury to Mark Borowiecki.
However, it has also been an ongoing theme since the start of the season.
While the Senators have been a competitive squad at Canadian Tire Centre (18-13-6), they had won only seven of 33 road games before Wednesday’s late game here at the Staples Center against the Los Angeles Kings.
The discrepancy in first periods at home and on the road is startling. At CTC, the Senators have outscored opponents 36-30. On the road, they’ve been steamrollered to a tune of 42-18 in the opening 20 minutes.
“That’s a learning lesson for us, you have to be ready to go every night,” Senators coach D.J. Smith said of Tuesday’s first-period show by Deslauriers and the Ducks. “We just didn’t have it at the start.”
The same line, more or less, was echoed by Brady Tkachuk and goaltender Marcus Hogberg, who allowed all five goals on only 13 shots.
“At the end of the day, it’s just that we’ve got to be better right from the drop of the puck,” said Tkachuk, who had a second-period goal and assisted on Colin White’s third-period goal. “We’re going to learn from that and use that going forward.”
Said Hogberg: “It was a tough start, a tough game to lose, too. We just have to move forward and learn from it.”
Indeed, there’s a lot of teaching to be done by Smith and his coaching staff when it comes to being ready for the early, aggressive push by teams eager to take control of games at home.
At this point, Smith is not being measured by wins and losses — seriously, Senators fans, with the NHL draft lottery on the horizon, who was cheering for a win Wednesday with Ottawa and Los Angeles deadlocked for 29th place in the standings? — but his mandate is all about making young players better in the long run.
At the forefront are Tkachuk and Chabot, who have been asked to take on larger roles after the previous leaders have gone out the door. Then there are players like White and maybe Nick Paul, who will be in position to show the way for the next wave of incoming prospects. That group could include Drake Batherson, Josh Norris, Logan Brown, Erik Brannstrom, Jacob Bernard-Docker and Lassi Thomson.
In the meantime, though, the longer-term veterans that are still here — players such as defencemen Ron Hainsey and Nikita Zaitsev — have to be a bigger presence at the bigger moments, including at the starts of games.
“We can’t leave (Hogberg) out to dry like that,” Tkachuk said. “There were a couple of times (early) that we got beat up the ice and that stuff can’t happen.”
While Tkachuk was part of an improved Senators crew in the final two periods against the Ducks, forcing Anaheim goaltender Ryan Miller into making several big stops to prevent any rally, Smith acknowledges the Ducks played differently while nursing their 4-0 edge.
“That’s losing hockey,” Smith said.
“You give them a lead and they don’t need to score.”