Category: Sports

OTTAWA, ON – Toronto scored four straight goals and never looked back in a 5-2 victory over Ottawa before a sold-out crowd of 8,447 at The Arena at TD Place on Saturday afternoon.

The victory extends Toronto’s season-high win streak to seven games and is their first win against Ottawa this season – previously losing 5-1 on Jan. 13 and 3-1 on Jan. 23.

Natalie Spooner led the way offensively for Toronto with a goal and an assist, and Kristen Campbell turned aside 23 of 25 shots faced for her eighth straight win.

Spooner opened the scoring on the powerplay at 12:53 of the first period with her league-leading 11th goal of the season and fourth with the advantage. As Toronto controlled the play inside Ottawa’s zone, Renata Fast patiently carried the puck into the middle of the ice and found a wide-open Sarah Nurse in the slot. Nurse turned and fired a low shot that deflected off Spooner and past netminder Emerance Maschmeyer.

Toronto went into the first intermission leading 1-0 and came out flying in the second period with three goals in a span of 2:28.

Brittany Howard was first to strike in the middle frame at the 2:46 mark. Victoria Bach won a puck battle in the corner and fed a perfect pass to an open Howard at the top of the circle who ripped a shot past Maschmeyer’s blocker. It was Howard’s second goal of the season – with her first also scored in Ottawa.

Hannah Miller scored her fourth goal of the season at 4:43 to make the game 3-0 for Toronto. Nurse found a streaking Spooner rushing down the right wing. Spooner’s shot was stopped by Maschmeyer’s right pad, but kicked right to Miller on the doorstep, and she made no mistake, burying the puck into the empty cage.

Following Toronto’s third goal, Ottawa pulled Maschmeyer – who had stopped 10 of 13 shots – and replaced her with backup Sandra Abstreiter.

Just 31 seconds after the change, Samantha Cogan scored on Toronto’s first shot on Abstreiter at 5:14 of the period. Bach found Cogan with time and space at the hashmarks, and the Ottawa native sniped her first PWHL goal as the puck trickled through Abstreiter’s right arm and across the line.

Gabbie Hughes put Ottawa on the board at 11:16 with her team-high sixth goal of the season. Ottawa took advantage of a turnover in the offensive zone and had their net-front persistence pay off. Campbell couldn’t quite handle a Hayley Scamurra backhand in close, and Hughes jammed home the loose puck while battling a pair of Toronto defenders.

Ottawa cut Toronto’s lead in half at 5:49 of the third period with Ashton Bell’s first PWHL goal. Jincy Roese put a shot from the point towards the net, which hit a Toronto defender, and landed in the slot where Bell managed to slap a backhander past Campbell.

Maggie Connors iced the game with an empty net goal at 18:27 – her second tally of the season.

Abstreiter settled into a groove and finished the game with 10 straight saves.

The victory gives Toronto an impressive 19 points in seven games, moving them ahead of Minnesota and into second place in the PWHL standings with 24 points, while Ottawa remains tied for fifth place with New York with 16 points.

Up next, Ottawa hits the road for a Tuesday night game in Minnesota, March 5 at 8:00 p.m. ET, at Xcel Energy Center. Toronto returns home for a Wednesday night game, March 6 at 7:00 p.m. ET, at Mattamy Athletic Centre against Boston.

OTTAWA, ON — Dylan Guenther scored the tiebreaking goal early in the third period, and the Arizona Coyotes beat the Ottawa Senators 5-3 on Friday night to snap a 14-game losing streak.

Michael Carcone, J.J. Moser, Nick Schmaltz and Matias Maccelli also scored to help the Coyotes get their first win since Jan. 22 to end a an 0-12-2 skid. Karel Vejmelka stopped 34 shots to get his first win since Dec. 27 after going 0-8-0 in 10 appearances since.

“It’s (big) for everybody,” Coyotes coach Andre Tourigny said. “For coaches, management, our fans, our media, everybody. You want to be in a winning environment, you want to have success.”

Guenther scored a power-play goal at 4:18 of the third, beating Senators goalie Anton Forsberg under the arm to give the Coyotes a 4-3 lead after they gave up a three-goal advantage.

“It’s a big relief,” Guenther said. “I think we’ve been playing really well lately. It’s just really nice to get that out of the way and continue to play well.”

Maccelli added an empty-netter with 1:15 remaining to seal the win.

“Everybody has wanted to win for a long time,” Vejmelka said. “It tastes special for us, for now. A lot of emotions for us. I’m glad and happy for the team. We finally did it.”

Senators captain Brady Tkachuk left the game with 3:30 remaining in regulation. Tkachuk had been hit earlier in the period.

Vladimir Tarasenko, Drake Batherson and Shane Pinto scored for the Senators, who have lost three in a row. Forsberg had 26 saves as a late replacement for Joonas Korpisalo (illness).

“I got a lot of shots at the start to settle in a little bit,” said Forsberg. “I don’t think our start was great, obviously, being down 3-0 in the first. … I mean we came back strong. Last period I’ve got to make that save to give us a chance to win.”

Carcone opened the scoring for Arizona 7:31 into the game as got the rebound of Liam O’Brien’s shot and beat Forsberg through traffic. Moser made it 2-0 with a shot from the top of the faceoff circle a little more than five minutes later.

Schmaltz pushed the lead to 3-0 on a two-man advantage with 4:23 left in the first when he got a cross-ice pass from Macceli and roofed the puck short side for his 17th.

“I think the beginning of the game we’ve got to be better, but special teams they got two power plays and I thought there were some calls that were questionable and we didn’t get any calls,” Senators interim coach Jacques Martin said. “I thought that was the difference in the game.”

Tarasenko got the Senators on the board with 1:51 left in the opening period with a shot from the bottom of the faceoff circle.

Ottawa outshot Arizona 19-4 in the second and scored twice 2:03 apart to tie it.

Batherson cut the lead to one with 6:11 remaining as he pulled back a rebound of Jacob Bernard-Docker’s shot and wristed it past Vejmelka. Pinto then tied it with a power-play goal with 4:08 left in the period.

OTTAWA, ON – Gabbie Hughes scored the game-winner with less than five minutes to go in regulation to help Ottawa defeat New York 4-2 on Wednesday.

After New York overcame an early 2-0 deficit to tie the game in the third period — reminiscent of the last time the two teams played in Ottawa in which New York completed the comeback in overtime— it was Hughes who broke the tie at 15:54 of the third.

The play began when defender Amanda Boulier entered the offensive zone before feeding the puck to Hughes who was headed to the net. Hughes then took the puck across the crease, outwaited New York goaltender Abbey Levy and roofed the puck with a backhand shot to give her team a 3-2 lead.

The win ends Ottawa’s two-game slide and is the team’s second victory on home ice this season.

Ottawa defender Savannah Harmon opened the scoring just 2:30 into the game, a goal that required video review, which confirmed the puck had crossed the line. Harmon took a shot in-close on Levy, and the puck just squeaked in over the line, behind the goaltender’s pad.

At 10:12 of the second period Ottawa doubled their lead to 2-0 with a shorthanded tally.

Forward Becca Gilmore fed the puck to Fanni Gasparics on the rush, who then took a shot from the slot. Levy stopped the initial attempt, but Gasparics was able to get to her own rebound, which she buried for her first-ever PWHL goal, a ‘jailbreak’ marker that also freed teammate Jincy Roese from the box.

New York answered quickly when Chloé Aurard scored her first of the season at 10:50, just 38 seconds after Ottawa’s second goal. Aurard made the score 2-1 when she created a turnover in the offensive zone, grabbing a puck that she then fired quickly past Ottawa goalie Emerance Maschmeyer.

With the game still 2-1 in the third period, New York capitalized on the powerplay to tie the game.

PWHL leading scorer Alex Carpenter intercepted a puck behind Ottawa’s net and quickly found defender Jaime Bourbonnais who was pinching in the slot. Bourbonnais executed a slick toe drag to move around an Ottawa player, then took a quick snap-shot, which beat Maschmeyer and tied the game 2-2.

With under a minute to play—and the game 3-2 thanks to Hughes’ tally—Ottawa defender Ashton Bell made what was perhaps the game’s biggest save when she denied Jessie Eldridge’s attempt to score on a seemingly wide-open cage.

Bell’s save allowed teammate Lexie Adzija to seal the victory for Ottawa with an empty net goal with four seconds remaining in regulation.

Ottawa earns three points for the regulation victory, which ties them with New York in the standings—each team has 16 points, two points behind fourth place Boston.

Maschmeyer made 24 saves to earn her fourth victory of the season. Levy stopped 26 in the loss.

Up next, Ottawa hosts provincial rivals Toronto on Saturday at 3:30 p.m. ET. The next afternoon, New York welcomes Minnesota to UBS Arena for a battle set for 12:30 p.m. ET.

OTTAWA, ON — Tim Stutzle scored the winner in the shootout as the Ottawa Senators overcame a two-goal deficit and a late tying goal by Vegas to beat the Golden Knights 4-3 on Saturday night.

“I think maybe in the past, if we got down early, obviously we still worked, but I think now we’ve come back in a few games and we believe that we can come back,” said Drake Batherson, who scored his 18th goal of the season for the Senators.

Josh Norris and Thomas Chabot also scored for Ottawa while Anton Forsberg, getting his third start in four games, made 26 saves.

“He’s played well,” interim coach Jacques Martin said of his goaltender. “I think early in the game, he wasn’t as sharp, but as the game went on, he played with a lot of confidence and poise and made some big saves for us. And in the shootout he was perfect.”

Chandler Stephenson scored twice and Jonathan Marchessault had the other goal for the Knights, who lost their third in a row. Logan Thompson stopped 30 shots.

Vegas trailed 3-2 with just under two minutes remaining, but forced overtime after Stephenson scored his second of the night at 18:45 with Thompson on the bench.

There was some relief to finally be rewarded after pulling the goalie.

“That’s been a problem for us all year,” said Knights coach Bruce Cassidy. “So, we changed up a bit of our structure on it and found the open guy and got it to the net.

“Part of our problem with that is we haven’t been executing that play to get it to the net down low, so that was good. Obviously, helps us get a point but at the end of the day I felt we played well enough to get two.”

With the game tied 2-2 Norris scored to give the Senators the lead at 5:48 of the third by tipping in Chabot’s point shot.

Vegas took a 2-0 lead just three minutes into the second on Stephenson’s power-play goal from the left faceoff circle, but Chabot cut the lead to one with a wrist shot from the high slot.

“I think it’s something to build off for a long road trip here,” said Stephenson. “Obviously, would have been nice to secure that two-goal lead we had here, but credit to them for their push and for us to get one late to get a point out of it. Shootouts can go either way.”

Chabot has goals in each of his last three games.

Forsberg bailed the Senators on a bad turnover stopping Sheldon Rempal on a breakaway late in the period.

With Ottawa on the power play Brady Tkachuk fed Batherson in the slot to tie the game with under two minutes remaining in the second.

The Knights opened the scoring at 5:41 of the first when William Karlsson stripped Stutzle of the puck along the side boards deep in Ottawa’s end and fed Marchessault, who beat Forsberg off his backhand for his 30th of the season.

Marchessault is the first player in Vegas franchise history to have two 30-goal seasons, the last coming in 2021-22.

OTTAWA, ON — Josh Norris score two goals and the Ottawa Senators beat the Dallas Stars 4-1 on Thursday night.

Thomas Chabot and Shane Pinto also scored for Ottawa, which has won two of its last three games. Anton Forsberg turned away 14 shots.

Joe Pavelski scored for Dallas, which has now lost four in a row.

Jake Oettinger started in net for Dallas but was pulled in the second period after allowing three goals on 11 shots. Scott Wedgewood gave up one goal on 19 shots in relief.

The Senators scored three unanswered goals while holding the Stars to just four shots in the second period.

Drake Batherson made a great pass to Norris, who got a step on Miro Heiskanen, to beat Oettinger five-hole for his second of the night at 5:37 of the second.

The assist gave Batherson his 200th career NHL point.

Chabot made it 3-1 Ottawa at 8:56 when he wristed a shot to the top right corner from the inside of the left circle.

Pinto completed the scoring with a power-play goal with 17 seconds remaining in the period.

Norris opened the scoring at 4:12 of the first period, tipping in a shot for his 14th of the season.

Pavelski scored his 20th of the season to tie the game with 9.3 seconds remaining in the frame on a delayed penalty call.

Coming into the game, Dallas was tied for the NHL lead in goals per game at 3.63. Ottawa ranked 30th in goals against at 3.57.

OTTAWA, ON – Grace Zumwinkle scored her team-best seventh goal of the season to lead Minnesota to a 2-1 victory in Ottawa on Saturday afternoon.

The game was the second in a row between the two teams in four days, with each contest ending 2-1 in favour of Minnesota.

Zumwinkle scored the eventual game winner with just 19 seconds remaining in the second period to break the tie and give her team a 2-1 lead.

The first-year pro took the original shot on the play which ended up on teammate Maggie Flaherty’s stick at the point after the puck was fired wide. Flaherty then took a shot from the point, which hit traffic in front, but Zumwinkle was able to pounce on the loose puck in the slot and put it past Ottawa goaltender Emerance Maschmeyer.

Minnesota’s Sophia Kunin was the first to get on the board in the game, scoring her second goal of the season at 18:33 of the first period give her team a 1-0 lead.

The goal, unassisted, was scored on a breakaway that was created after two Ottawa players collided. Kunin was then in all alone from the blue line and utilized a slick deke to slide the puck in five-hole.

Ottawa’s Emily Clark was finally able to get the home team on the board on what was their 18th shot on goal at 10:04 of the second period.

Clark finished off a passing play created after teammate Aneta Tejralová held the puck in the offensive zone at the blueline. Forward Gabbie Hughes then picked up the puck at the hashmarks before passing it across to teammate Amanda Boulier who found Clark back-door for the tap-in tally.

Despite a furious finish to the game in which Ottawa pulled Maschmeyer for the 6-on-5 advantage, Minnesota goaltender Nicole Hensley came up big several times to secure a critical three points for the regulation victory.

Hensley made 28 saves to secure her fifth win of the season. Maschmeyer stopped 22 shots in the loss.

With the win, Minnesota adds to their lead in the standings where they now sit four points ahead of Montréal and Toronto.

Next up, Minnesota has a quick turnaround as they head to Montréal for a game tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. ET at Place Bell. The next afternoon, Ottawa plays in Boston at the Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell for a Presidents’ Day tilt— the game was originally scheduled for January 8 but was postponed due to inclement weather.

OTTAWA, ON — Mason McTavish scored twice against his hometown team to help the Anaheim Ducks beat the Ottawa Senators 5-1 on Thursday night.

The 21-year-old McTavish grew up in nearby Carp, Ontario. He has 15 goals this season, his third with the Ducks.

Frank Vatrano, Pavel Mintyukov and Cam Fowler also scored for Anaheim. The Ducks rebounded from a 5-0 loss in Montreal on Tuesday night.

John Gibson stopped all 15 shots he faced through two periods before leaving because of an upper-body injury. Lukas Dostal made 18 saves in he third period.

Gibson was run over by Senators forward Drake Batherson and Ducks defenseman Ilya Lyubushkin early in the second period and was knocked over a second time later in the frame.

Claude Giroux scored for Ottawa and Joonas Korpisalo made 15 saves. The Senators had won four in a row.

OTTAWA, ON — Brady Tkachuk recorded the second hat trick of his career to lead the Ottawa Senators to a 6-3 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday night.

Tkachuk scored twice on the power play, and Claude Giroux added a short-handed goal and two assists as Ottawa won its fourth straight. Ridly Greig and Erik Brannstrom also scored. Anton Forsberg made 37 saves.

Dmitri Voronkov, Boone Jenner and Jack Roslovic scored for the Blue Jackets. Daniil Tarasov stopped 24 of 29 shots.

The Blue Jackets opened the scoring with a shot by Kent Johnson that deflected twice. Johnson’s centering pass hit Voronkov in the skate and then deflected off the skate of Senators’ defenseman Jacob Bernard-Docker and past Forsberg.

Tkachuk scored twice in a 48-second span, including one on the power play. His first came at 9:48 when Josh Norris fed him the puck at the side of a wide-open net. The second, at 10:36, came when Tkachuk scoring on his own rebound.

The Senators then added a short-handed goal when Giroux scored into the top corner of the net at 14:46 for a 3-1 lead. They appeared to go up 4-1 just 25 seconds later, but after a coach’s challenge, goaltender interference called.

In the second period each team scored twice. Grieg and Tkachuk sandwiched their goals around scores by Jenner and Roslovic.

Grieg gave the Senators a 4-1 lead at 5:37. Columbus scored twice, at 10:49 and 13:54. Tkachuk completed his hat trick at 16:48 on the power play and the Senators took a 5-3 lead into the third period.

OTTAWA, ON — Alex Carpenter scored the game-tying and game-winning goals against Ottawa on Sunday, as New York rallied back from a 3-0 deficit to win 4-3 in overtime.

New York scored three third period goals in a span of 1:39, the last of which came at 16:33 and tied the game 3-3.

Carpenter, who leads the PWHL in scoring with 11 points, provided the tying goal on the powerplay, much to the dismay of the near capacity home crowd at The Arena at TD Place in Ottawa. In the midst of a net front scramble, Abby Roque found a wide-open Carpenter in the slot—Carpenter quickly fired the puck into the open cage with Ottawa goaltender Emerance Maschmeyer still sprawled out on the right side of the net. Jessie Eldridge recorded the secondary assist.

Carpenter capped off the comeback by scoring at 2:12 of overtime with a shot off the rush which went in far-side on Maschmeyer. Ella Shelton and Roque provided the assists on the goal—the helper was Roque’s season-high third point of the game.

It was Roque who first gave New York a spark late in the third, at 14:54, which made the score 3-1. Roque was able to corral a rebound created by a Jaime Bourbonnais shot and put the puck over Maschmeyer’s shoulder from in close.

New York got within one just 44 seconds later, off the stick of Jade Downie-Landry, her fourth goal of the season. Eldridge provided the assist by patiently holding the puck on a 2-on-1 before feeding Downie-Landry who tapped it home to make the game 3-2.

Before Carpenter’s tying goal, Ottawa had held the lead since 7:37 of the first period when Aneta Tejralová scored her first of the year. Emily Clark and Amanda Boulier provided the assists on the goal, scored via a one-timer from the point which sailed over New York goaltender Corinne Schroeder’s glove.

After a scoreless second period, Ottawa’s Lexie Adzija gave the home team a 2-0 lead with her team-leading fourth goal of the season. Hayley Scamurra stole the puck from a New York defender before feeding Adzija on the 2-on-1, who slid it under Schroeder’s pad.

Savannah Harmon made the game 3-0 at 9:13 of the third with a powerplay marker. Harmon— who was coming off an impressive 5-point game at the PWHL 3-on-3 Showcase on Thursday— scored after Daryl Watts found her in the slot.

Schroeder made 39 saves for New York, who was outshot in every period except overtime. This is the goaltender’s fourth win of the season which ties her for the league-lead. Maschmeyer made 27 saves in the loss.

Next up, after the PWHL’s ten-day IIHF International break, Ottawa visits Minnesota for the first time at Xcel Energy Center on February 14. Three days later, on February 17, New York travels to Boston for a game at the Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell.

OTTAWA, ON — Claude Giroux scored 3:36 into overtime, and the Ottawa Senators rallied from three goals down to beat the Nashville Predators 4-3 on Monday night.

Brady Tkachuk and Tim Stutzle each had a goal and an assist, and Drake Batherson also scored for the Senators, who won for the fourth time in seven games (4-1-2). Mads Sogaard allowed three goals on 11 shots in the first period. Joonas Korpisalo stopped all 17 shots he faced the rest of the way to get the win.

Philip Tomasino had a goal and an assist, Michael McCarron and Yakov Trenin also scored, and Roman Josi had two assists for the Predators. Juuse Saros made 31 saves in Nashville’s fourth loss in five games (1-3-1).

In the extra period, scored on a one-timer from the left circle off a pass from Stutzle.

Nashville opened the scoring 8:26 into the game when Josi fired a shot from just inside center ice and it wrapped around and popped out front to McCarron who fired a shot past Sogaard.

Tomasino made it 2-0 when he won a race and roofed a puck over Sogaard with 3:30 left in the first, and Trenin extended the Predators’ lead to three goals when he caught Sogaard out of position with 1 minute left in the period.

Batherson got the Senators on the scoreboard at 5:21 of the second as he settled a bouncing puck in front and beat Saros. It was his 17th of the season.

Stutzle pulled Ottawa within one at 9:20 when he scored his 11th, and Tkachuk tied it with his 21st with 2:50 remaining in the middle period after a faceoff win by Josh Norris.

Ottawa defenseman Travis Hamonic remained out with an upper-body injury, while Dominik Kubalik returned to the lineup after missing four games.

OTTAWA, ON — Artemi Panarin had a goal and two assists, and the New York Rangers scored seven unanswered goals to beat the Ottawa Senators 7-2 on Saturday night.

Jonathan Quick made 29 saves to stop his five-game losing streak, and first-year Rangers coach Peter Laviolette tied Al Arbour for seventh place in NHL history with 782 career wins.

Alexis Lafreniere, Chris Kreider, Zac Jones, Jonny Brodzinski, Blake Wheeler and Kaapo Kakko also scored for the Rangers (30-16-3), who were coming off a 5-2 loss to Vegas at home Friday night.

New York improved to 9-0-0 in the second half of back-to-back games and heads into the All-Star break atop the Metropolitan Division.

Ottawa got off to a solid start with Brady Tkachuk and Jakob Chychrun scoring the first two goals, but things fell apart in the second period. Joonas Korpisalo was pulled after allowing four goals on 17 shots. Mads Sogaard gave up two goals on 11 shots.

The Senators (18-25-2) had been riding a five-game point streak (3-0-2) coming into the game.

OTTAWA, ON — Brad Marchand scored at 1:48 of overtime and the Boston Bruins beat the Ottawa Senators 3-2 on Thursday night.

The goal was Marchand’s 396th — the fifth in four games — and moved him past Ray Bourque and into fifth all-time with the Bruins.

“It’s special,” the 35-year-old Marchand said. “I try not to think too much about it, but it’s special. I never thought my career would come this far and some of the things that have gone on would have happened.

“I’ve been extremely fortunate and very lucky to be part of a group that’s had a lot of success and a lot of phenomenal guys to learn from.”

It was also Marchand’s 19th career overtime goal, tying him with Jaromir Jagr for the third in NHL history, behind Alex Ovechkin (26) and Sidney Crosby (20).

David Pastrnak and Trent Frederic also scored for the Atlantic Division- and Eastern Conference-leading Bruins. Jeremy Swayman stopped 35 shots.

“I think the biggest thing is finishing off a game that looked like an uphill battle sometimes,” Swayman said. “And it’s really special to get a back-to-back and finish it in overtime, so huge congrats to (Marchand) passing some pretty great names. So really, really good feel-good win for us.”

Thomas Chabot and Vladimir Tarasenko scored for the Senators. Joonas Korpisalo made 20 saves.

Ottawa was trailing 2-1 when Josh Norris thought he had tied the game at 13:18 of the third. But, officials determined a hand pass was involved.

The Senators did come back to tie the game at 2-all with a power-play goal at 16:42, when Tarasenko sent a shot past Swayman.

Leading 1-0 after one period, Boston extended its advantage at 8:19 of the second when Frederic beat Korpisalo high to the blocker side. The Senators cut the lead to one with a late power-play goal.

Drake Batherson made a backhand pass to Chabot, who snapped a shot past Swayman for his second of the season.

“Drake (Batherson) did 99 percent of the job,” said Tarasenko. “He made a very good screen and the goalie can’t see and left the corner open.”

The goal resulted in a scrum behind the net, and Chabot got punched by Charlie McAvoy, triggering a larger scrum and roughing penalties assessed to McAvoy, Wotherspoon, Tim Stuzle, with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty to Batherson.

Bruins coach Jim Montgomery wasn’t overly impressed with the discrepancy in power plays.

“I don’t think we dodged a bullet; I think we took about eight bullets,” said Montgomery. “They had six power plays we had one. That is one-sided.”

The Bruins were largely outplayed in the first, but still held a one-goal lead after the opening 20 minutes.

Ottawa failed to capitalize on its two power-play chances, while Boston scored three seconds into its power play at 18:36 of the first. Pastrnak beat Korpisalo from just inside the blue line on the Bruins’ third shot of the period.

Senators forward Shane Pinto made his home debut after serving a 41-game suspension for gambling. Pinto had returned to action and picked up a point in a win at Philadelphia on Sunday.