Ottawa Senators Postgame: Sens Hang On, Beat Red Wings

It wasn’t pretty, but it was a big win for the Ottawa Senators nonetheless. The Senators struggled through penalty issues early, but found their way to a 3-0 lead thanks to a strong effort from Linus Ullmark and the penalty kill. Halfway through the third, Michael Amadio looked like he put this game away with a breakaway goal to make it 4-1. The Senators then played some sloppy hockey defensively, allowing the Red Wings to get within one. To their credit, the Senators fought hard in the last few minutes, and found their way to a big 4-3 win. Let’s dive into the details.

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Strong Penalty Kill

As mentioned above, it was the Ottawa Senators penalty kill that saved them early. It’s not too often a team will be shorthanded five times in a period. It’s even more rare for that team to receive no power plays of their own in that period. Well, that’s what the Senators fought through in tonight’s first period. To make it even worse, they were taking on the team with the most power play goals in the league this season. The key to any good penalty kill is the goalie. Ullmark stood tall, and the Senators went five for five on those kills. The key shorthanded forwards were Giroux, Greig, Highmore and Pinto. On defense, it was Chabot and Jensen, but even more so Zub and Sanderson, who both ate up over seven minutes shorthanded tonight.

Spread Out Scoring

Once again, the Ottawa Senators saw several different players help out offensively. They had four different goal scorers, and no player scored more than one point tonight. The last time a Senator scored more than one goal in a game was March 8th. Tonight, it was Chabot, Stützle, Perron, and Amadio scoring the goals. For Perron, that gives him goals in three straight games. He’s scored seven goals and 10 points in the 13 games in March.

As for Amadio, he was unfairly reduced to under 9 minutes of ice-time in each of the last two games prior to tonight. He was playing his best hockey of the season, contributing as both an offensive and defensive player. Despite that, he ended up on the fourth line when Travis Green switched up the lines. If Nick Cousins is able to return, the Senators forward depth could be really solid, with Green able to trust all four lines. Of course, it’s hard to stay healthy.

Additional Notes

Travis Green decided to sit Travis Hamonic, giving Nikolas Matinpalo a big opportunity to try to impress enough to stay in the lineup. The result? Green didn’t trust Matinpalo a whole lot, playing him for just under 8 minutes. Baby steps, I suppose. Brady Tkachuk had himself a well-rounded game. He was held without a point, but deserved one for his physicality before the Stützle goal. He had five shots, a fight, won four of his five faceoffs, and was trusted to help close out the game when Detroit had pulled their goalie.

One area the Senators need to improve is their lack of attention to detail in their own zone in late game situations. They blew a third period lead against the Canadiens recently, almost did the same against the Devils on Saturday, and almost blew their lead tonight. But, let’s not dwell on the negatives here, especially on a night when they won and the Montreal Canadiens lost.