Ottawa Senators Win Fourth Straight in Philadelphia, 5-2

I'm sure you're surprised to see a clean Ottawa Senators road victory being recapped by yours truly, especially considering some of my greatest hits, but here we are. This is how you know 2025 really is different.

With the Sens looking for their fourth win in a row after a grueling victory against the Detroit Red Wings yesterday, the Philadelphia Flyers were in a position to play spoiler. Initially, though, it seemed like the Flyers weren't interested in playing at all.

It took just 24 seconds for Ottawa to open the scoring when Brady Tkachuk decided to cope with the departure of Josh Norris by briefly becoming Norris himself. He drifted past three Flyers who were focused on Tim Stützle and Claude Giroux, settling in below the faceoff dot unmanned, received a feed and one-timed it into the net for the 1-0 lead. Just don't injure your shoulder now, Brady.

If you tuned into this one a minute into the game, you'd probably enjoy watching paint dry more than the rest of that 1st period, but for a team up 1-0, playing on the second night of a back-to-back, boring hockey is good hockey. Neither team capitalized on their first power-play attempts, and the only other good chance in the frame after Brady's marker came off the stick of Tyson Foerster on a 2-on-1, but Anton Forsberg, in his first action in over a month, came up with the stop to keep the Sens ahead after 20 minutes.

Early in the second, Shane Pinto was caught after an aggressive forecheck, leading to numbers for Philly in the Ottawa end. Jamie Drysdale beat Forsberg on the backhand to tie the game.

That goal came after the Flyers carried the play for a bit, and they were poised to build on the momentum from there, only for it all to be brought to a halt by a Tyler Kleven wrist shot from the point.

Yes, you heard right. A Tyler Kleven wrist shot. Everyone in the building thought he would wind up and hammer that puck but he threw a change-up which beat a screened Ivan Fedotov.

Not the most sustainable way to get a goal, but hey, neither is Ottawa's 5-on-5 finishing and we take what we can get, don't we? The Senswere bound to get a lucky break eventually, especially with respect to Kleven, and David Perron, who now has points in four straight games.

Four minutes later, however, the Flyers would tie the game, courtesy of Ottawa's 4th line and top pairing being hemmed in their zone, multiple failed clearing attempts, and Rodrigo Abols' second NHL goal.

Yes, you heard right. A second NHL goal – he already got the first against someone else. Now that's at least an original bit that I can laugh at.

After some more ineptitude on the power-play from both teams, with the best chances on either side coming from odd-man rushes on the kill, Mike Amadio was able to beat Fedotov from a tough angle to give Ottawa's goal total a crucial 1-Up.

Eventually, amidst the effort to defend their lead until the final whistle, a Matthew Highmore turnover in the o-zone created a 3-on-1 rush for the Flyers, only for Highmore to come back with a furious backcheck and dive to block what was otherwise a game-tying goal, out of midair (true to his name).

Was the turnover bad? Yes. Was that save even better? Also yes.

Despite avoiding disaster up to that point, the Senators were just one shot away from a potential collapse and generating close to zero pressure. An insurance marker was absolutely necessary, and Dylan Cozens (as well as the Flyers, oddly enough), was more than willing to provide with 9 minutes to go:

That's Cozens' third point in three games with Ottawa – so farhe's making good on the promise of being a valuable source of 5-on-5 scoring for a team desperate for it.

After a failed empty-net attempt from Pinto and Amadio in the dying minutes, the two found redemption on their second try, for Pinto's 15th of the season. That would close out the scoring, with the final score 5-2 and a much-needed low-event shot count of 24-22, both in favour of your Ottawa Senators. Was it beautiful hockey? No, but it was their fourth straight win.

Game Notes:

• With tonight's victory, Ottawa's 5 points clear of the New York Rangers for WC1 with 18 games to go. That's at least 18 hours of hockey, or 1,080 minutes to go. It's still a marathon, folks.
• Once again, Tkachuk has saved his best hockey for March and April, but this time it actually means something. A 5-game point streak this month includes 5 goals and 1 assist, and with support from up and down the lineup each game, we're seeing the team put together wins in what seems lke a sustainable fashion.
• I would totally give Perron the benefit of the doubt for his lack of production early in the season, if I felt that off-ice events had played a role. But I'm not seeing anything different in his play other than a change in his luck. The effort and chances have always been there, now we're starting to see pucks go in, including some breaks in his favour.
• Forsberg was solid tonight, and will need to continue to perform as such, as load management for Linus Ullmark will be crucial going forward. Not just in the second half of back-to-backs, but liked in a few other select games as well.
• Fabian Zetterlund had a few shifts in the top-six but once again saw limited ice time at 9:55. I'd love to see more of our trade deadline pickup but I can also understand where Travis Green is coming from, what with Perron's hot streak and the chemistry of Pinto, Amadio, and Ridly Greig.

Stats:

Up Next:

• The Boston Bruins are without their top two defensemen, and just sold Brad Marchand and Brandon Carlo to division rivals, and just beat the crap out of both Florida teams. Why can't these guys just make like the Coyotes and disappear?