Linus Ullmark and the Ottawa Senators Shut out Seattle Kraken 3-0

The Ottawa Senators once again rewarded those of us who stayed up past midnight in the eastern time zone (thank you as always to coffee for making this review (and all of my writing (and everything I do in life)) possible). It didn't always look pretty and Linus Ullmark definitely bailed out his teammates more than once but the Sens found their groove midway through the game and Seattle did not have the answers for Ottawa's netminder or the Senators' opportunistic offence.

I don't think anyone would argue that Ottawa played a perfect road period in the first frame (and Seattle did have twice as many shots after all) but from a fundamental perspective I don't know how much more you could ask for from a jet-lagged team. Ottawa took the lone penalty of the period (courtesy of Noah Gregor) and at five-on-five Seattle only got two or three decent looks at Ullmark. Of course Ullmark probably had the best period among Senators in the first, making all the saves necessary to keep this game in reach beyond the first 20 minutes.

Other than that, the Senators did a good job limiting Seattle to shots from the outside, getting in passing lanes, and preventing odd-man opportunities the other way. Ullmark and the defence did just enough to bide their time and get Ottawa a modest amount of offensive zone time (Joey Daccord held up his end of the bargain however). Tim Stützle deserves some recognition (for the bazzilionth time) because he really has that elite ability to gain the zone even with the opposing defence fully drawn in. I thought Ottawa's defenders also did a good job in the first to hold the line and keep a couple of cycles going. Daccord probably got the highlight of the period springing Tye Kartye for a rare rush attempt (stifled by Ullmark).

Considering Ottawa had the long change, the Sens played something close to a perfect road period in the second. Jacob Bernard-Docker took the second penalty of the game and Ullmark again seemed up to the task on the penalty kill. I would also argue that the Sens have started figuring out how to effectively implement the diamond on the kill better of late. Things started looking worrisome as Ottawa earned the dreaded no-shots-clock for the first five-to-seven minutes of the period with real shades of that game against San Jose. At the same time, this game had a very 2000s vibe (makes sense given these two rosters) and good thing for Ottawa, Shane Pinto won the favour of Fortuna to sneak one past Daccord. At this point Seattle had the shot advantage 20-10 and yet I wouldn't call it a PDOing by Ottawa.

At the mid-point of the game, it felt like Seattle actually had to play defence with a bit of urgency as Ottawa had some consistent shifts. You could argue that Seattle probably deserved the lead at this point and that Ullmark had done more than his fair share–Noah Gregor continued to trend of reversing lousy shooting luck and Ottawa closed the shots gap to five in the process.

As opposed to turtling like the Sens of years gone by, Ottawa managed to leverage their 2-0 lead into some confident play in the early goings of the third period. Ottawa had the answers whenever Seattle tried to get cooking and alleviated Ullmark of some of his earlier workload. In an extremely on brand Sens sequence, Claude Giroux took a hit to the numbers that could have qualified as interference at least, and before Giroux could even fully air his grievance with the officials, Team Dad set up Stützle who extended Ottawa's lead to three and evened up the shots at 23 apiece (and then Giroux got to give the refs an earful).

On ensuing shifts, Ottawa got another powerplay that didn't amount to much except effectively eating the clock (full credit again to Seattle's penalty kill). Seattle got themselves a pretty soft compensatory call to shift play back to Ottawa's end after ten minutes off for Ullmark. With the Sens in full control of the game, Seattle started to show some frustration and the teams continued to trade penalties, giving Ottawa some opportunities to pad their lead or at least kill more time in Seattle's end. For all of a second, it seemed like Ottawa may have gone up 4-0 but the the refs immediately called out Ridly Greig for interfering with Daccord.

Daccord left the crease for a sixth Seattle skater with a full five minutes on the clock which afforded no relief for nervous Sens fans who still haven't quite earned the benefit of blind faith in these situations. Ottawa, and Ullmark in particular, had to weather some 6-on-5 and 6-on-4 flurries but as you probably know by this point, the vibes remain immaculate in Ottawa for another day.

Game Notes

• More important than the highlight reel saves that kept the shutout intact, Ullmark made a dozen or more routine saves that kept Ottawa in the game for the first 30 minutes until the offence started clicking–what a luxury.
• Daccord probably wants one or two of those goals back but otherwise he played well and I am genuinely very happy that a nice guy is having a good career even if it's not in Ottawa.
• That empty net flurry from Seattle skewed the numbers somewhat but make no mistake, Ottawa had two-thirds of the expected goals at five-on-five (on the road).
• I won't nitpick about Ottawa's powerplay because they paced themselves well in a game when they could have run out of fuel after 40 minutes. Sometimes you gotta play the long game.
• It seems good that Ottawa can win games even when Brady Tkachuk's line doesn't score and when Thomas Chabot and Jake Sanderson also don't show up on the scoresheet.
• I did not expect that many penalties between these two teams. Refs gotta make it interesting though.
• I don't think any Senators had a bad game by any measures so I'll take the opportunity to highlight that the third pairing made some pretty sound defensive decisions to move the puck up the ice, and also Zack Ostapchuk looks more confident with each game in the NHL.
• See you in Calgary! (Go Sens Go)

Game Flow

Heat Map