The Senators had Sunday night in Anaheim lined up perfectly after 20 minutes. Then everything unraveled.
Ottawa jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the opening period, only to watch the Ducks storm back with six straight goals in a 6-3 loss that flipped the game completely. Cutter Gauthier drove the comeback with a hat trick, and Anaheim’s power play kept hammering away until the Senators had no answer left.
Philip Tomasino got Ottawa rolling with his first goal as a Senator, redirecting a Thomas Chabot shot. Claude Giroux and Michael Amadio added goals before the first intermission, and the Senators looked like they were cruising toward a second straight win to close out the California leg of their five-game road trip.
Instead, the second period changed the whole night. Just 90 seconds in, Shane Pinto mishandled the puck during a breakout and pushed it back in front of his own net, where Gauthier finished the play and gave Anaheim its first crack of momentum.
From there, the Ducks kept coming. Judd Caulfield scored twice, including a power-play goal late in the period that tied the game. Anaheim’s special teams then took over for good in the third, with Gauthier scoring twice more on the power play to finish his hat trick and Roger McQueen adding another man-advantage goal to blow the game open.
Anaheim finished 4 for 5 on the power play, while the Senators went 0 for 3.
The schedule didn’t help Ottawa, either. The Senators were playing the second game of a back-to-back after beating San Jose on Saturday, while the Ducks had not played since Thursday and spent the week at home. That’s a real edge, especially for a team nearing the end of a long Western trip.
Still, Ottawa had the game in hand and let it slip away. The Senators were up 3-0 after one and had scored 12 goals over their previous five periods, but instead of tightening things up, they got dragged into a track meet they couldn’t survive.
Jonas Johansson took the loss, allowing six goals on 33 shots.
There was also a possible league look at Dylan Cozens’ hit on A.J. Greer.
It looked like shoulder on shoulder, but Cozens came from the blind side and delivered a heavy shot that the league doesn’t usually like. Greer briefly appeared to be unconscious, then quickly got up and tried to fight Cozens.
After a lengthy video review, Cozens was ejected.
Ottawa finished the trip with three losses in four games, going 1-2-1. The Senators now get a couple of days to reset before heading to Buffalo for their next game on Wednesday night.
In Other News...
Senators Give Two Depth Names A Big Chance In Buffalo
The Senators finish their five-game road trip in Buffalo with a lineup that looks a lot like the one they used in Anaheim, but there are still a couple of fresh wrinkles for a team trying to get through the stretch without much margin for error. Sammy Blais is set to make his regular-season debut for Ottawa, a chance earned in part by the injuries that have thinned the group and opened a door for depth players to step in and matter.
Carter Yakemchuk is also expected back in the lineup after missing the previous game, giving Ottawa another young option on the blue line as Nikolas Matinpalo sits out with illness. Samuel Ersson gets the start in goal, and with the road trip winding down, the Senators are again leaning on a mix of regulars and call-up energy to get through one more game before heading home. [Read more 🡒]
Sabres Catch A Break As Senators Face Another Goalie Issue
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The lineup hit did not stop there, either. Defenseman Tyler Kleven will also miss the game because of illness, adding another absence for a Senators team already dealing with a thin margin for error as it faces Buffalo. [Read more 🡒]
Senators Power Play Problem Is Starting To Put Travis Green On Spot
The Senators power play has become one of the clearest trouble spots in the early part of the season, and it is starting to put Travis Green in an uncomfortable position. Ottawa has had chances to cash in with the extra man, but the unit has too often looked disjointed, with sluggish puck movement, sloppy passing and too little sustained pressure to make opponents pay.
For a team that needs every edge it can get, the lack of finishing touch on special teams has fed into the bigger scoring concerns around the roster. The encouraging part is that the fix does not seem mysterious, with more shooting and cleaner movement among the adjustments that could help, but until the Senators show they can turn those ideas into results, the spotlight on Green and his staff is only going to get brighter. [Read more 🡒]