Norris Scores in Sens Loss to Jets

Howdy y’all and welcome to the recap.

With Anton Forsberg in one end and Connor Hellebyuck in the other, the Ottawa Senators and Winnipeg Jets knew coming into this one that there wasn’t room in Kanata for the both of them.

Tonight the Sens were hoping to buck the trend of getting behind early but were unsuccessful. While on the power play, the Jets opened the scoring thanks to the recently healthy Nikolaj Ehlers.

Luckily for those in attendance, the home team wasn’t down for long. Just a few minutes later, Josh Norris buried is first since returning from injury. Claude Giroux found his shootin’ partner right off an offensive zone draw and Norris fired one home.

Josh Norris snipes one home right off the draw, knotting it up at 1 for the Senators!#GoSensGo pic.twitter.com/VH01d9HVIH

— Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights (@HockeyDaily365) January 22, 2023

Late in the first, the Sens got themselves into some penalty trouble - never a good idea when you’re facing a team with as many offensive weapons as the Jets. Although they were down a man for much of the tail end of the frame, they managed to escape the first period without surrendering a late goal.

Coming into the second period, once again looking to get off to a strong start, the Sens... allowed the first goal again. Just five minutes into the frame, Mark Scheifele buried his 27th of the season. Later in the frame, Winnipeg found the back of the net once again, this time courtesy of Blake Wheeler. While the Sens outshot their opponents 13-8 in the period, all the matters is that the Jets scored twice while the Sens failed entirely in that category.

Between periods, the message had to be about a strong start to the third. They were unable to do so in the first and second and the only way they were going to mount a comeback was to

So, logically, they took a penalty just under a minute in to make shrink their chances of building early momentum about as close to zero as you can get.

The team did manage to kill off the penalty and, shortly thereafter, had a powerplay of their own where they had a number of solid chances. It was at this point you could feel a comeback might be on its way. When time expired on the Neal Pionk interference penalty, the Sens maintained possession and dug their heels into their stirrups to keep the charge going. Unfortunately the gallop turned to a trot as the period went on, with Ottawa taking another penalty and then failing to capitalize on another powerplay.

With less than four minutes remaining, Scheifele found the back of the net once more, effectively cancelling any idea of a last minute rally for the hometown team.

With just two minutes left, the Sens found themselves once again in the penalty box and Cole Perfetti snapped a fifteen game goalless drought to give Winnipeg a 5-1 lead.

Alas, the Sens sent their fans off to the saloon to drown their sorrows after yet another loss in the month of January.

Game Notes

• There has to be a structural component to the Senators’ slow starts. They’ve given up the first goal in seven of their last eight games, most of which occurred during the first half of the opening frame.
• Anton Forsberg was fine tonight. Yes, he posted a 0.833 SV% but two of his five goals against were on the penalty kill and he didn’t have much help. I’d go with Forsberg again next game, as Cam Talbot has been given a number of starts and hasn’t been able to string anything together of late.
• It was great to see Josh Norris score again. It feels like an eternity since we got to see him light the lamp and doing so off a clean Claude Giroux faceoff was probably the highlight of the game for me.
• Thomas Chabot and Jacob Bernard-Docker got wildly outmatched tonight, as the Sens were routinely outshot and outchanced with Ottawa’s top pair on the ice.
• While the top line was out for multiple goals against, they still dominated the possession game with a cool 73.68 CF%. That’s all well and good but at some point you have to score to help your team win and tonight was one of those more rare nights where all of Tim Stützle, Brady Tkachuk and Drake Batherson were held off the scoresheet.
• The poor starts in the first and second were obviously not what you wanted but the biggest problem I saw tonight was that, in the third period, down two goals, the Sens got absolutely dominated at even strength. The Jets had a team 74.43 CF% in the final frame, outchancing the Sens ten to four at 5v5. You can’t possibly expect to complete a comeback with that kind of effort in the final period./

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