takeaways: ottawa senators put montreal canadiens in their place huge 5-2 win
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oh, what a night for the ottawa senators.
the senators were determined to close out their seven-game road trip in style, and the mission was completed as the club skated to a 5-2 victory over the arch-rival montreal canadiens on tuesday night at the bell centre.
coming off a disgraceful 6-1 loss to the dallas stars on sunday, the senators got their act together to halt a two-game losing streak and close out a seven-game road trip above .500 with a solid 4-3-0 record.
the victory moved the senators past the habs into second place in the atlantic division.
“massive win,” said captain brady tkachuk, who put it away with his first of the season with 6:17 left in the third. “it’s a four-point swing in these types of games. we came in with the mindset that we wanted to finish this road trip with a record over .500, and it was a great game by everybody.”
the senators received from their defence with six points from the blueline, including goals from jake sanderson and artem zub, while fabian zetterlund and drake batherson also chipped in with goals.
goaltender linus ullmark gave up only two goals on 19 shots, which extended his career record to 5-4-1 in 11 career appearances against the habs. he made some good stops, especially with the habs pressing to get back into the game, trailing by two goals in the third.
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“it was a great way to finish off a long road trip, and i know we’re very excited to get back home playing in front of our fans,” said sanderson.
rivalry game
this was a tough, physical battle. every check was finished. there were scrums after whistles, and these are two good teams that both made the playoffs last spring, going head-to-head.
the senators and habs are battling for positioning in the atlantic division, and this was another chapter in what’s been a heated rivalry. these two teams don’t like each other.
tkachuk gets under the skin of the habs with his mere presence, and the montreal faithful were even more upset when he extended the lead to 5-2 with a beauty from the slot.
“we had a lot of good players tonight,” said coach travis green. “i liked the physicality in our game. we always try to play physically.”
rugged winger kurtis macdermid suited up. the habs had defenceman arber xhekaj and his brother, florian, dressed, which meant green had put some muscle in the lineup.
macdermid and arber exchanged pleasantries in the second, but xhekaj didn’t want to drop the gloves.
the senators did their talking on the scoreboard, but the canadiens made a major push after ottawa pulled out to a three-goal lead.
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the habs could have used a few more stops from samuel montembeault, but the senators were winning the battles to create chances.
batherson and sanderson scored a span of 1:10 in the second to pull out to a 4-1 lead. the goal by sanderson was his seventh point in six games. nick suzuki did pull his club to within two goals.
lining them up
the lines switched for the second straight game after the meltdown in dallas.
tkachuk skated on the left side of tim stutzle and zetterlund. that meant batherson moved back with dylan cozens and david perron.
the line of shane pinto, michael amadio and claude giroux remained intact while macdermid skated with lars eller and ridly greig.
zub gave the senators a 2-1 lead after 20 minutes with some incredible moves with the puck in front to beat montembeault. the pass from tkachuk was good, but zub was magic with the puck at 16:53 of the first.
this got off to a wild start. zetterlund continued his hot streak with his fourth goal in six games on this road trip. he fired a blast by montembeault at 4:01, only 24 seconds after the habs had opened the scoring.
that one was special for zetterlund because he lost his grandmother recently.
“she passed away a couple of days ago. it was nice, it was for her,” zetterlund said.
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montreal fans were still celebrating juraj slafkovsky’s opening goal on the powerplay. that came after ullmark made two huge stops, only to have slafkovsky beat him on the glove side down low.
milestone night
perron will remember this night down the road.
the 37-year-old senators’ winger suited up for game no. 1200 of his career in montreal, and the sherbrooke native is only the 18th quebec-born player to achieve the feat.
“you try to make it as much of a normal game as it is,” perron said before the game. “but, any time you hit a bit of a milestone like this, it’s special. they get more and more special as you go because you know there aren’t going to be many left. once it’s over with, you turn the page and work towards the next one, whatever that may be.
“it’s special to still be playing, finding a way to stay relevant, staying alive. playing on top lines, playing on the bottom two lines. finding a way to create energy, bring physicality. wanting to be in the lineup and make a difference. it’s exciting. i want to keep going.”
perron picked up an assist on tkachuk’s third-period effort.
bgarrioch@postmedia.com
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