Senators Postgame: Sens Swept in Season Series With Sabres

In what has been a highly disappointing season for the Buffalo Sabres, at least they can say they got the best of the Ottawa Senators, over and over again. This marks the fourth straight loss by the Senators to the Sabres this season, closing out their games against each other until next year. The scores were 5-1, 4-0, 3-2 and then the 5-2 win by the Sabres tonight. A bad first period had the Senators chasing the game from the start, and despite some stretches of strong play, they struggled to finish on some glorious chances. Shots were 35-22 in the Senators favour, but it’s easy to win the shot battle when you’re playing from behind the whole game. Let’s dive into the details.

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Senators Struggle Without Brady Tkachuk

It seems obvious at this point that Brady Tkachuk has some type of nagging injury that he’ll have to battle through for the rest of the year. Unfortunately, the Senators haven’t shown the ability to succeed without their captain in the games he’s missed. They’ve gone 0-3, and have been outscored 14-5 in those games. Dealing with injuries has been a struggle for this team for years now. It’s been a built-in excuse for why they’ve struggled when the likes of Josh Norris or Shane Pinto had to miss time. Great teams have the ability to overcome injuries. The Ottawa Senators aren’t that type of team as of now.

Finishing Issues Persist

The Ottawa Senators came into tonight 20th in the league with 2.88 goals per game. They’re even worse at five on five, where they rank 30th. That’s despite sitting 8th in the NHL with 29.2 shots per game. Tonight was much of the same. Coming off a game where they were shutout, they managed just two goals on 35 shots. The Sabres, by the way, came into tonight as the fourth worst team in goals allowed per game at 3.56. In some ways, this was expected. The Senators were without Brady Tkachuk, and they were also taking on Senators killer James Reimer. This was déjà vu from just one week ago, where Reimer stood tall to beat the Senators. Add the two games together and Reimer stopped 63 of the 67 shots he faced.

Additional Notes

After a few weeks of strong play from the Batherson, Cozens, Perron line, they had themselves a miserable game. Batherson was an ugly minus five and looked silly on the Tage Thompson goal, and Cozens was a minus four with a bad giveaway that led to the Sabres fourth goal. One Senator that shows up to play every night is Jake Sanderson. Tonight was no different, as he scored a goal and was constantly leading the rush to try to create offense. To make a bad night worse, both the Canadiens and the Blue Jackets won as they continue to chase the Senators in the Wild Card race. As for the rest of the week, the Sens will have games against the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers. It’s time for them to prove themselves worthy of a playoff spot.