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There was no let-up; against the NHL’s second-worst team, the Ottawa Senators kept their foot on the gas pedal.
There was no let-up; against the NHL’s second-worst team, the Ottawa Senators kept their foot on the gas pedal.
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With a 3-1 win over the lowly Nashville Predators on Saturday night at Canadian Tire Centre, the Senators got back to .500 (with a 12-12-2 record).
In a four-game home stand where they play the Detroit Red Wings (a 2-1 win Thursday), the Predators Saturday, the New York Islanders Sunday and the Anaheim Ducks Wednesday (Dec. 11), the Senators are now 2-0.
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Hard to believe the Predators, who opened the vault in this past summer’s free-agency period, can be this bad. They have world-class goalie Juuse Saros, elite defenceman Roman Josi and good veteran wingers Filip Forsberg (94 points last season), Steven Stamkos (81 points last season) and Jonathan Marchessault (42 goals and 69 points last season).
It’s not as if the Senators have shown they are much better than any of the four opponents in this home stand. Going into Saturday’s games, the Red Wings had 24 points, the Predators had 20, the Islanders had 27 and the Ducks had 23. All of the teams are in the bottom half of the NHL standings.
But Saturday, the Senators did plenty of good things. Most importantly, they limited Nashville’s scoring chances with strong play in their own zone.
Taking a nice cross-ice pass from Tim Stutzle, Jacob Bernard-Docker, moving up on the right side, ripped a shot past Nashville Juuse Saros 5:07 into the second period. It was Bernard-Docker’s first goal of the season.
Claude Giroux made it 2-0 with 3:08 left in the period.
With Nashville’s defencemen pinching in to try to create some offence, the Senators knocked the puck past the blueline and it was retrieved by Nick Cousins, who went top shelf for the goal with 7:23 left.
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The Predators prevented the shutout with 1:57 left on a goal by Fedor Svechkov. They nearly had another one less than a minute later with the puck getting behind Ullmark during a scramble around the Ottawa goal.
Four minutes into the game, Ottawa goalie Linus Ullmark made a big save on Stamkos, who tried to bang a pass from behind the net past the goalie. That’s the way it went for the first period. First, Ullmark would make a save, then, at the other end, it was Saros turning the puck aside. The game was goalless through the first period with the Senators outshooting the Preds 11-8. The Senators cracked through with a couple of goals in the middle period.
Ullmark continued to stand tall; his steadiness and poise are what’s needed if the Senators are to get something going.
You don’t see many Senators other than Brady Tkachuk drop the gloves and get into a fight. But 6-foot-4 Zack Ostapchuk was a willing goer Saturday, answering the challenge of Nashville’s Cole Smith. Ostapchuk, who was recalled from Ottawa’s minor-league affiliate in Belleville a bit less than two weeks ago, knocked the Predators winger to the ice with a couple of mighty rights. As for hits without fists, Tkachuk drilled Nashville’s Alexandre Carrier against the boards early in the third period. The defenceman had to be helped off the ice. It was a clean hit; there was no retaliation.
Drake Batherson, who has points in eight straight contests, holds the NHL’s longest active assist streak (six games) and can push it to seven straight for the first time in his career. He would become the third Senators player in the past 10 years with a run of at least that length, following Mark Stone (10 games in 2017-18) and Mike Hoffman (seven games in 2017-18). Batherson went into Saturday’s game with 27 points (nine goals and 18 assists) and is on pace to blow past his career-best (set last season) of 66 points.
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