OTTAWA, ON — The Ottawa Senators were playing their first game since Jan. 31 while the Edmonton Oilers were playing their third game this week. The outcome wasn’t surprising.
Connor McDavid had a goal and two assists and Zach Hyman scored on a penalty shot to lift the Oilers past the Senators 6-3 on Saturday, snapping Ottawa’s four-game win streak.
Brett Kulak had a pair of assists in the third period as the Oilers broke a 3-3 tie on their way to victory. Kulak made a great cross-ice pass into the Senators zone for Jesse Puljujarvi who beat Anton Forsberg in the Ottawa goal at 3:05 of the third period.
He then sent a pass in front that was literally chopped in by Derek Ryan at 7:24. It was the Oilers second short-handed goal of the game.
“I think we made two critical mistakes and both end up in our net,” Senators coach DJ Smith said. “We’ve got to be harder. We haven’t made those mistakes in the past four games when we’ve been winning. We’ve taken care of the puck, we played hard in front of our net and we just didn’t do that enough to win.”
With 5:23 to play in the third, during a goalmouth scramble that resulted in a power-play goal by Ryan Nugent Hopkins, Forsberg was injured and had to be taken off the ice on a stretcher with an apparent lower-body injury.
“It’s never a pleasant sight. He’s been gritty for us all year. No update but I hope it’s not as severe as it looked. I really hope and praying that it’s not too bad,” Senators captain Brady Tkachuk said. “Just the way he takes care of himself on the ice, off the ice, how great of a pro he is and how good of a person he is too, you never want to see that,”
Mads Sogaard took over in goal for the Senators and stopped all three shots he faced. Forsberg allowed six goals on 37 shots.
Hyman was lying on top of Forsberg at the time of the injury.
“It’s awful. I mean, you hear him going down and you hear him in pain. But you can’t do anything. I literally couldn’t do anything. I’m stuck on him because there’s a guy who’s on top of me pushing me in,” Hyman said.
“It’s not a fun play to be a part of. I almost stopped playing there because I locked eyes with him and he was just in pain. Hope he gets better soon. Just a tough, tough play.”
Ryan McLeod also scored for the Oilers (30-18-5) while Jack Campbell had 26 saves.
Jake Sanderson, Claude Giroux and Erik Brannstrom scored for the Senators (24-24-3).
McDavid scored the only goal of the first period when he banked a shot from behind the goal line off Forsberg and in at 2:18.
“First period we expected that. It’s their third game and it’s our first from break, so we expected their push and their jump. I liked our second period and we gave ourselves a chance for the third. Just a couple of costly mistakes ended up in the back of our net,” Tkachuk said.
The teams combined for five goals in the second period including two at-even strength, a power-play goal and a short-handed goal on the same penalty, as well as a penalty shot marker.
The fun started with Sanderson sliding one along the ice past Campbell just 21 seconds into the period to tie the game 1-1. At 1:44, after being hooked by Alex DeBrincat, Hyman scored on his penalty shot to give the Oilers a 2-1 lead.
With Derek Ryan in the penalty box for hooking, McDavid stole the puck from Thomas Chabot, did a little dance then sent a no-look backhand onto the stick of McLeod who beat Forsberg at 15:18 for a 3-1 Edmonton lead.
“I was just kind of on Chabot right away and just trying to get the puck back somehow and (create) a chance. Got it back and I didn’t like the look I was going to get, tried to find (McLeod), saw him skating up the ice really hard and just tried to find him on the back side,” said McDavid, who extended his point streak to 15 games.
Just 17 seconds later though Giroux scored a power-play goal, and then at 17:58 Brannstrom scored his first goal in 121 games to tie the game 3-3 heading to the third period.
