STRUCK DOWN
Gourde plays spoiler in OT as Senators almost bounce back from humiliating loss to Sabres
The Ottawa Senators came within a whisker of escaping Canadian Tire Centre with a victory Sunday.
Instead, a Yanni Gourde overtime goal, 14 seconds into overtime — confirmed after a video review — prevented the Senators from earning a split on the weekend.
The Lightning came oh-soclose to walking out of the Canadian Tire Centre with nothing.
Brayden Point scored on a Lightning power play with 26 seconds remaining — on the Lightning’s 43rd shot of the game — to send the contest to extra time.
The tying goal came off a lucky break, when a bouncing puck skipped over Mark
Borowiecki’s stick, and off a controversial slashing (“a little tap on the stick,” according to Senators coach Guy Boucher) penalty to Mikkel Boedker with 1:40 remaining in regulation.
“It was 3-2 for us and we didn’t deserve that penalty,” said Boucher. “The players did what they had to do.”
Boucher has a point about the penalty. The Senators did, however, give up 22 third period shots and 45 shots for the game. Immediately afterwards, the players shut the doors to the dressing room to address the lengthy losing slide — six losses in their past seven games — and a long stretch weak third periods.
“I thought we showed some heart,” said Mark Stone .“But (Sunday), the way we played the third period wasn’t good enough, again. There are times in games where we play so well and we just can’t let our foot off the gas the way we did to a great offensive team.”
It was an especially tough loss for Anderson, who was once again the only thing standing between the Senators and another regulation defeat.
Before the late Lightning power play, it looked like a
Matt Duchene body check might have paved the way for a regulation win by Ottawa.
The Lightning were peppering Anderson with shot after shot after shot. Duchene, sensing the opportunity to make his mark, hit Lightning star Nikita Kucherov witha solid, but clean hit inside the Senators blue line. Kucherov responded with an ugly retaliation. With a delayed penalty
coming to Kucherov, the Senators threw an extra player on the ice and seconds later
Cody Ceci drove to the net and beat Lightning goaltender Louis Domingue.
The Senators were resilient. If there was anything positive coming out of Saturday’s 9-2 thrashing at the hands of the Buffalo Sabres, it was that the Senators had the opportunity to return to the ice immediately Sunday.
They certainly looked like a different squad at the outset.
The Senators stormed out to an early 2-0 lead on the strength of power play goals by Bobby Ryan and Max
Lajoie, but the Lightning clawed their way back.
Cedric Paquette made it 2-1 early in the second and
Matieu Joseph — his first NHL goal — deadlocked the game 2-2 early in the third.
As much as Tampa Bay is a legitimate contender to win the Stanley Cup, the Senators had a whole lot more to prove coming into the game.
After being unprepared early and then humiliated over and over again Saturday, they promised they would be ready at the outset against the Lightning.
The Lightning, who defeated the Montreal Canadiens 4-1 on Saturday, gave No. 1 goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy
a rest. That meant the Senators saw back-up Domingue, who came into the contest sporting a 4.00 goals against average and .887 save percentage.
The Senators took full advantage, with their early power-play goals.
HOWBADWASIT?
Saturday’s showing in Buffalo wasn’t the worst in franchise history, but it came close. The seven-goal margin of defeat was the greatest since losing 11-4 to the Quebec Nordiques on March 26, 1995. The franchise record for largest loss is 10 goals, including a 11-1 loss to St. Louis on Feb. 26, 1994 and a 10-0 romp by Calgary on Jan. 15, 1994 … Boucher, when asked if the ugliness helped serve as a teaching moment for his team: “Nobody in the world wants to be embarrassed, at anything,” he said. “The teaching thing is very easy on that one. Whether you are old or young, whether you are a media person, a coach, a plumber … if things don’t work out, you are embarrassed. You are not happy and you want to do better, so that’s the thing we know is there for sure. The easier times (to teach) is when you get a shellack. It’s not very hard to get back on track.”