Ottawa Senators Lose 4th Consecutive Game, 3-2 to Vegas Golden Knights

On the one hand, I'm lazy. On the other hand, maybe it's to your benefit – the less I talk about this game, the better.

After getting a few good chances to start, the squad decided to tuck in for the night and let Linus Ullmark salvage his dreadful SV%. That is, until the 3rd period when they briefly woke up to pad their stats.

Jack Eichel had the first goal for the Vegas Golden Knights, picking up an easy rebound after Ivan Barbashev's initial attempt was stopped by Ullmark. Both guys were left open as if it were a 5-on-3 kill.

As for Vegas' 2-0 goal, it wasn't as egregious as the first, but it was still pretty bad. Catching them on a line change, Brett Howden took a drop pass from Barbashev, and his attempt squeaked through Ullmark, right after he'd been making some incredible saves on the PK.

While all of this was happening, Ottawa occasionally almost scored a goal, but Adin Hill or Ilya Samsonov (I couldn't tell you who it was because they both were under .900 going into tonight) ensured the Sens stayed off the board. And except for the third line of David Perron, Shane Pinto, and Mike Amadio, it seemed for every chance they got, Vegas got three of their own.

Down by two after two, Ottawa started the 3rd period alright, and even managed to get on the board in the dying seconds of the power-play, courtesy of their most cost-effective goal-scorer in Adam Gaudette with plenty of time left in the game.

That only wound up being a mere gap in the misery, however. I didn't expect this from the Ottawa Senators. I thought they would tie the game, and dominate from there until allowing the game-winning goal in the last 30 seconds of regulation, but no. They just allowed a breakaway and goal from Pavel Dorofeyev 2 minutes after Gaudette's. BO-RING!

Drake Batherson scored with 7:32 left in the game to cut the lead in half again, but that didn't change the number of points the team got from this one. Zero. The final score was 3-2, with Ottawa getting yet another moral victory with a 40-32 shot advantage.

Game Notes:

• Ullmark would like that 2nd goal back but overall did well enough for an NHL team to win against an opponent in the second half of a back-to-back. It's just a shame he got the Ottawa Senators on a typical November evening.
• You know the stupid shit that has defined the team's identity over the past few years? I don't see much of that when Perron's on the ice. He's got no points, but he sticks out as someone who's merely unlucky, and putting in an honest effort without being a tire fire in his zone. A pleasant surprise considering his defensive numbers weren't good in Detroit.
• Tonight was a major struggle for Tyler Kleven, who hasn't moved the needle in either direction overall. Lost on the first goal and made a bad pinch leading to the third. Hope he can bounce back, which to be fair is likely given his safe deployment.
• Despite the club's best efforts, a lot of Eastern Conference teams have sucked so far so a winning streak could theoretically get things back on track. The word "theoretically" carries a lot of weight in that sentence.
• I should probably add a note about a player's recent stats...ok, I'll let y'all play Mad Libs with this one. In his last [number] games, [name of an Ottawa Senator] has just [number] points. [expletive].
• Next up are the Vancouver Canucks, at 7:00 pm EST on Saturday, November (ugh) 23rd.

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