Category: Sports

OTTAWA, ON — After failing to meet expectations this season, the Ottawa Senators wanted to at least send fans home on a positive note.

Thanks to Drake Batherson’s shootout winner on Saturday night they were able to do just that.

Batherson was the game hero in a 5-4 shootout win over the Montreal Canadiens beating netminder Cayden Primeau low blocker.

“Me and Alfie actually did a video about that a few weeks back kind of, about that move,” said Batherson. “I figured I would try it. My first chance doing it and, you know, it worked out and he kind of gave me a wink there after, so it was funny.”

Senators captain Brady Tkachuk had a pair of goals and an assist, while Shane Pinto and Thomas Chabot also scored for Ottawa (36-40-4). Joonas Korpisalo made 21 saves.

Tkachuk, who set a career high in goals (37) had himself an impressive night with 12 shots on goal and eight hits in addition to his three points.

“I mean, in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really mean much,” said Tkachuk. “Like I said this morning, it wasn’t about individual goals this year it was more team goals and unfortunately we didn’t hit them and I think there’s a lot of lessons to be learned this year.”

It was somewhat bittersweet for Senators interim head coach Jacques Martin, who coached his final game at Canadian Tire Centre as he will not be returning behind the Ottawa bench next season.

“It’s been great,” said Martin. “I enjoyed the opportunity to come back and hopefully help the team understand what it takes to be in the playoffs, how you need to play on a nightly basis, help the players grow and maybe get better.

“As an organization I think we have some work to do, but I think we’re headed in the right direction.”

Cole Caufield led the way for Montreal with a pair of goals. Mike Matheson and Alex Newhook also scored for Montreal (30-36-14). Primeau stopped 39 shots.

The Senators swept the season series 3-0 and with nine wins against Montreal, tied their longest winning streak against one opponent. Ottawa also won nine in a row against Buffalo.

“For whatever reason they’ve had our number for a bit,” said Newhook. “They play a fast game. They play a skilled game. I thought we did a pretty good job of limiting their chances tonight for a pretty dangerous offensive team, and unlucky to not come away with a win.”

With a divided sellout crowd there was plenty for all the fans to cheer about with end-to-end action in the overtime period, but things remained unresolved.

Chabot forced the extra period scoring with 1:05 remaining in regulation tipping a Batherson point shot with Korpisalo on the bench.

“The fact that we’ve been in so many (close games) this year, those are reps you can’t buy,” said Canadiens coach Martin St. Louis. “They’re real reps. Sometimes you’re up protecting a lead, you’re trying to crawl back, you’re trying to get back in the game. Obviously, the overtimes and the shootouts, they are what they are, but I think as we keep progressing, we’ll find ourselves on the other side of them.”

The Canadiens had taken a 4-3 lead with 4:11 left in the third when a centring pass went in off Ottawa’s Jakob Chychrun skate.

Tkachuk tied the game, 3-3, with his second power-play goal of the game 47 seconds into the third period.

Montreal took a 2-1 lead just 97 seconds into the second when Caufield slid the puck under a sprawled out Korpisalo.

Ottawa cut the lead back to one with a power-play goal at 8:36. Claude Giroux dropped a pass back to Pinto who snapped a shot from the slot, but Montreal replied with a power-play goal of its own with Caufield finding the top corner.

Montreal opened the scoring with a short-handed goal after Jake Sanderson had a rare turnover at the blue line allowing Matheson to break in alone and beat Korpisalo stick side.

Tkachuk tied the game with a power-play goal at 13:08 when he grabbed his own rebound out front and backhanded a shot past Primeau.

OTTAWA, ON — Brendan Smith had a goal and two assists and the Devils snapped a three-game losing streak by holding on for a 4-3 win over the Ottawa Senators on Saturday night.

Erik Haula, Ondrej Palat and Nico Hischier also scored for New Jersey, which won the season series 2-1. Jake Allen made 25 saves.

Jake Sanderson, Claude Giroux and Brady Tkachuk scored for Ottawa, which trailed 4-1 after two periods and has now lost three in a row.

Anton Forsberg got the start in net for Ottawa but was pulled in the first period after allowing three goals on just nine shots. Joonas Korpisalo allowed one goal and made 18 saves.

With the Senators trailing 4-1, Giroux cut the Devils’ lead in half with a power-play goal from the top of the faceoff circle at 3:37.

Moments later, New Jersey forward Jack Hughes was awarded a penalty shot after Ottawa defenseman Thomas Chabot wrapped his stick around him on a breakaway. But Hughes whiffed on the puck.

Chabot returned after missing four games with a lower-body injury.

Tkachuk made it a one-goal game with 5:43 left to play. Hischier’s slap shot went wide and wrapped around the boards and down the ice just as Tkachuk was getting on the ice and he broke in alone and beat Allen for his 34th goal of the season.

Sanderson put the Senators on the board with a power-play goal just 33 seconds into the second period, blasting a shot past Allen from the blue line to make it 3-1.

The Devils regained their three-goal lead at 11:04 with Hischier beating Korpisalo in close.

New Jersey jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first period.

Haula beat Forsberg under the arm stick side 3:50 into the first. Palat doubled the lead at 12:36, tipping Luke Hughes’ shot. Smith made it 3-0 with a slap shot from just inside the blue line at 16:34, ending Forsberg’s night.

OTTAWA, ON – Sergei Bobrovsky made 30 saves for his fifth shutout of the season, Matthew Tkachuk had a goal and two assists and the Florida Panthers routed the Ottawa Senators 6-0 on Thursday night.

Panthers coach Paul Maurice moved into sole possession of fourth place on the NHL victory list with 865.

“I (once) thought, ‘If I could coach 500 games in this league, that would be something else,’ because I think the average number is about 250 or 350,” Maurice said. “I think you hit it and you go, ‘If I could get 500 wins, that would be something,’ and then you just start getting older. I have more fun coaching the game now than I ever have in my life.”

Nick Cousins, Dmitry Kulikov, Anton Lundell, Sam Bennett and Sam Reinhart also scored to help Florida improve to 48-24-5.

“It took everybody, including obviously ‘Bob,’ but all four lines and everybody was in it today,” Lundell said. “It was a great team win.”

Joonas Korpisalo allowed four goals on 17 shots for Ottawa. Anton Forsberg gave up two on 14 shots in relief.

“Not much needs to be said,” Ottawa star Brady Tkachuk said. “That was embarrassing.”

With Florida up 5-0 to start the third, Tkachuk scored a power-play goal by tipping in Aleksander Barkov shot in front.

Florida padded its 2-0 lead by scoring three times in the second period.

Lundell, who was below the goal line, banked a shot off Korpisalo’s shoulder to make it 3-0 at 2:35. Less than two minutes later Tkachuk dropped a pass to a trailing Bennett, who beat Korpisalo to end the goalie’s night.

Forsberg came on in relief but, with just over two minutes remaining in the period, Reinhart scored his 53rd of the season.

The Panthers opened the scoring 1:02 into the game, with Cousins taking a pass in the slot and beating Korpisalo Kulikov made it 2-0 35 seconds later with a shot from just inside the blue line.

OTTAWA, ON – Claude Giroux and Parker Kelly scored, and the Ottawa Senators beat the Chicago Blackhawks 2-0 on Thursday night for their fourth consecutive victory.

Anton Forsberg made 19 saves in his second shutout of the season and No. 5 for his career.

It was Ottawa’s first win against Chicago since Dec. 20, 2016, snapping an 11-game skid.

“Really good start; kind of set the tone for the rest of the game,” Kelly said. “Thought we did a pretty good job of just keeping them at bay, getting pucks behind them and not really letting them in our zone. Really liked our game tonight, a full 60.”

Chicago goaltender Petr Mrazek made 32 saves. The last-place Blackhawks had won two straight games.

Fans piled near the glass during warmups to see Chicago rookie Connor Bedard, but the 18-year-old center was kept off the scoresheet.

“We just didn’t match their intensity,” Chicago coach Luke Richardson said. “I think they were a step ahead of us everywhere and unfortunately we paid the price. (Mrazek) kept us in and gave us a chance to get back in the game but our power play that has been very good for us lately tonight was a little sloppy.”

The Senators were coming off a 6-2 victory at Buffalo on Wednesday night.

Ottawa held Chicago to just six shots on goal in the third as the Blackhawks pressed to beat Forsberg.

The Senators jumped out to a 2-0 lead early in the first period.

“The first period was the difference, it’s as simple as that,” Chicago forward Nick Foligno said. “We’ve had trouble with our starts. I don’t know what it is. Obviously, they were excited coming back to a sold-out rink and we just didn’t have the same energy and compete that we needed.”

Giroux scored a short-handed goal just 36 seconds into the game. It was his 20th on the season.

Kelly capitalized on a Bedard giveaway. His shot went off former Senators defenseman Nikita Zaitsev and into the net, giving him a career-high eight goals on the season.

“We got saves when we needed it, and got a short-handed goal to start it and then again some production from different people,” interim Ottawa coach Jacques Martin said. “I thought we had a pretty good game, competed well and a good result.”

Zaitsev left the game, but Richardson said he wasn’t feeling well earlier and it escalated as he played. He also added that Zaitsev has been battling an upper-body injury of late.

The Senators played without defenseman Thomas Chabot, who has a lower-body injury.

OTTAWA, ON — Defenseman Jakob Chychrun broke a tie with 3:03 left with his second power-play goal of game to help the Ottawa Senators beat the Edmonton Oilers 5-3 on Sunday night.

With Edmonton’s Mattias Ekholm off for holding, Chychrun scored on the second of Ottawa’s three third-period shots, with the third coming on Parker Kelly’s empty-netter.

Tim Stutzle and Drake Batherson also scored and Joonas Korpisalo made 33 saves.

Zach Hyman scored his 50th goal for Edmonton, and Connor McDavid had two assists to push his season total to 91 and join Wayne Gretzky and Paul Coffey as the only Oilers to reach 90.

Adam Henrique and Leon Draisaitl also scored and Calvin Pickard made 11 saves for Edmonton, coming off a 6-3 loss in Toronto on Saturday night. The Senators also played Saturday night, beating New Jersey 5-2 on the road.

Edmonton forward Evander Kane sat out for what the Oilers called a “maintenance day.”

OTTAWA, ON – Daryl Watts had her first PWHL hat trick and Brianne Jenner had a goal and two assists as Ottawa won 5-3 at The Arena at TD Place on Saturday afternoon, ending Toronto’s win streak at 11 games.

This is the first loss for Toronto since January 23, also in Ottawa.

Toronto got out to a 2-0 lead in the second period with two goals from league leader Natalie Spooner— her 14th and 15th of the season— but Ottawa’s comeback started with just five seconds remaining in the frame.

Watts got the goal, a powerplay marker, to make the game 2-1 at 19:55 of the second period. Jenner provided the primary assist on the tally, her first point of the contest.

With time dwindling in the period, Ottawa rushed the puck up the ice and into Toronto’s zone. Jenner cut to the middle of the ice before feeding the puck to Watts, who was alone in the slot, snapping a shot under Kristen Campbell’s blocker to cut the deficit to one goal.

Hayley Scamurra evened the game 38 seconds into the third period, her fourth goal of the season. The marker was scored on a scramble in front and was assisted by Emily Clark and Aneta Tejralová.

Ottawa took their first lead of the game at 8:24 of the third off the stick of Jenner, her second point of the afternoon.

Linemate Kateřina Mrázová picked up an errant pass at the boards, and fed Jenner who was heading towards the net— Jenner got her stick on the puck backdoor, putting it past Campbell to give Ottawa the 3-2 advantage.

Ottawa continued to press, with Watts scoring her second of the game and her team’s third goal of the final frame, at 14:58.

Savannah Harmon intercepted a Toronto pass at the offensive blue line and banked the puck up to Watts, who drove the net before roofing it short side over Campbell’s glove to give her team a 4-2 lead.

After Sarah Nurse scored at 16:21 to make the game 4-3, it was Watts and Jenner who combined to seal the victory for Ottawa.

With Campbell on the bench for the extra attacker, Ottawa was able to clear the puck into the neutral zone. Jenner secured the puck and tapped it to Watts, who found the angle inside the blue line to make the game 5-3 with her third goal of the game. Mrázová recorded her second assist of the contest on the goal.

Emerance Maschmeyer made 19 saves to record her seventh win of the season. Campbell made 20 saves in the loss, her first defeat since January 17 against Boston.

Up next, both teams begin their IIHF International Break. Toronto returns to game action on Thursday, April 18 when they look to get back in the win column against Boston at the Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell. Ottawa then hosts Minnesota on Saturday, April 20.

OTTAWA, ON — Joel Hofer made 37 saves, Jake Neighbours scored twice and the St. Louis Blues beat the Ottawa Senators 5-2 on Thursday night for their fifth victory in six games as they fight for the second and final Western Conference wild-card spot.

The Blues moved a point ahead of Minnesota and within two points of Vegas, with the defending Stanley Cup champion Golden Knights holding the final spot.

Hofer was outstanding in the first period, making a behind-the-back save on Jakob Chychrun and another big save on Brady Tkachuk. The 23-year-old goalie admitted he exchanged a few words with Tkachuk that probably didn’t sit well with the Ottawa captain.

“I love playing the game,” Hofer said. “So, these are obviously fun games and especially games where you get a lot of shots and a lot of high chances it’s always fun making, you know, big saves for the team.”

Ottawa interim coach Jacques Martin said Hofer was the difference in the game.

“There’s no doubt when you look at the number of chances we had,” Martin said. “I think it was 22-12 in our favor.”

Jordan Kyrou had a goal and two assists, and Brandon Saad and Colton Parayko also scored.

“Every game for us is important right now,” Saad said. “For us it’s just focusing on one night at a time and any time we can win and kind of gain points it gives us a good feeling in here and it’s been fun as of late.”

Mark Kastelic and Dominik Kubalik scored for Ottawa, and Anton Forsberg stopped 22 shots. The Senators have lost three straight.

After Kubalik pulled Ottawa to 3-2 on a power play 1:58 into the third period, Kyrou took a pass in front, spun and roofed a shot for his third point of the night at 5:43. Neighbours added an empty-netter.

“The one in the third was big I thought,” Blues interim coach Drew Bannister said. “To be able to come back after that power-play goal. They come back a couple minutes later and score and that was a big response from our group to kind of settle things down on the bench.”

St. Louis center Zach Dean made his NHL debut, replacing the injured Oskar Sundqvist. Dean played junior hockey for the nearby Gatineau Olympiques.

OTTAWA, ON — Dmitry Orlov had two goals and two assists, and the Carolina Hurricanes scored four times in the third period to beat the Ottawa Senators 7-2 on Sunday night.

Evgeny Kuznetsov, Seth Jarvis, Jalen Chatfield, Jake Guentzel and Brendan Lemieux also scored for Carolina. Sebastian Aho had three assists and Frederik Andersen made 30 saves.

“We didn’t make a lot of mistakes in the third,” Orlov said. “We just put the puck deep and tried to forecheck. That’s our strength as a team. When you’ve got the puck, you just need to open up for each other. If you have a chance to shoot, you shoot it, and somebody should be at the front of the net. And I think today we did a much better job in front of the net.”

Thomas Chabot and Tim Stutzle scored for the Senators, who had their three-game win streak halted. Anton Forsberg stopped 31 shots.

“As a team you’ve got to find a way to come back in the third and get back to playing the same way,” Chabot said. “We gave them chances, obviously found the way to get in the back of our net and I mean those are the games that you’ve just got to watch and just all of us just got to look at ourselves and just be better next game.”

Some poor defensive coverage by the Senators allowed Chatfield to walk in and wrist a shot past Forsberg to make it 4-2 early in the third. Just over three minutes later the Hurricanes controlled the play as if they were on the power play and it ended with Orlov firing a puck from just inside the blue line.

Carolina put the game out of reach when Guentzel beat Artem Zub and scored his first with the Hurricanes since being acquired from Pittsburgh. Lemieux later tipped a Brent Burns shot for his third of the season.

“We were able to capitalize,” Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “All of a sudden, we got those chances and then, in the net, in the net, and that’s deflating for the other team. And then we’re able to just kind of sit on top of it and finish out the game.”

Carolina took a 2-1 lead early in the second with a power-play goal by Kuznetsov. Ottawa tied the game at 4:51 with an impressive effort by Stutzle, who threaded a shot through traffic for his 17th of the season. The Hurricanes regained the lead when Aho made a cross-ice pass to Jarvis, who snapped it past a sprawling Forsberg with 22 seconds remaining in the period.

Lemieux made a great pass to send Orlov in all alone and he made no mistake beating Forsberg glove side to open the scoring at 7:19. Chabot, making his return after missing the last five games, scored from the bottom of the faceoff circle at 13:52 to tie the game.

Carolina’s Teuvo Teravainen missed his second straight game due to an upper-body injury. He’s expected to return sometime this week.

OTTAWA, ON — Drake Batherson scored 3:13 into overtime, and the Ottawa Senators ended a seven-game winless streak with a 2-1 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday night.

Michael Bunting scored the tying goal with 23 seconds left in regulation, but the Penguins lost for the seventh time in eight games.

Jake Sanderson broke a scoreless tie 11 minutes into the third period for the Senators, who were 0-6-1 in their previous seven games. Batherson’s winner, assisted by Sanderson and Tim Stutzle, was his career-best 23rd goal of the season.

“It’s been quite a bit since we got a win,” Batherson said. “It was a nice play by (Sanderson) to (Stutzle) and then Timmy just made a great play to me back door and I was able to just squeeze it in.”

Joonas Korpisalo made 34 saves, and Tristan Jarry had 37 stops for the Penguins, who had been outscored 15-1 in their previous three games.

Pittsburgh trails the New York Islanders by seven points for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.

“A loss is a loss at the end of the day,” Jarry said. “We’re in a tough spot and that’s the only way you can look at it at this time of year. It’s tough to be in this position and we need the wins and maybe one more save might have done it.”

Sanderson put Ottawa in front after taking a pass from Mathieu Joseph in the slot. Bunting’s tying goal came with an extra skater on the ice.

The Senators thought they had opened the scoring when Claude Giroux found the net at 4:08 of the third, but the Penguins challenged for goaltender interference. After a lengthy review, the goal was overturned.

Ottawa generated a number of chances late in the second period, but Jarry turned away opportunities for Stutzle, Max Guenette and Batherson.

ile the Penguins are desperately searching for a way to spark their offence, Senators interim head coach Jacques Martin took much pleasure in a low-scoring game.

“There were some ups and downs in the game and I thought we handled it pretty good,” Ottawa coach Jacques Martin said. “We had a goal taken away, and we didn’t pack it in.”

The Senators didn’t do much with a pair of power plays in the second period. The Penguins generated great puck movement on their lone power play opportunity in the first but failed to truly test Korpisalo.

“I didn’t think we did as good a job tonight getting to the net front,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “We’ve got to do a better job fighting for that area of the rink.”

Zack Ostapchuk made his NHL debut for the Senators after being recalled from the AHL. The 20-year-old had two shots in 13 minutes.

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.