Las Vegas, Nevada where the wild and crazy flourish and where the Ottawa Senators completely forget the manual to winning a hockey game. Usually, one would say the score doesn’t reflect the team effort; they actually played a good fun game but this time around the score may have been too generous to the Sens. Guy Boucher was quoted saying that the team had composure the entire game and honestly, I’m not sure if he was just referring to Craig Anderson when he meant “team”.

The Sens went into this game on a 2-game losing streak with hopes that some of the Las Vegas luck rubs on them. Matt Duchene remained hot and opened the scoring early in the first with a pretty rebound goal which saw Cody Ceci get points in back to back games. The Senators couldn’t seem to hold on to the momentum and the Knights were starting to really take over the game; penalties didn’t help. The period took a dramatic turn when Mark Borowiecki delivered a hard hit to Cody Eakin’s head which immediately resulted in a fight with Jon Merrill. Initially, there was no penalty called but after the fight was settled, Boro was handed both a fighting major, charging penalty and a game misconduct with an inevitable hearing to follow. I’m going to assume the hit will be analyzed to no end in the next few days especially with Boro just coming off a suspension and probably heading to a new one possibly lengthy this time around but for now I will say it was “questionable”. The period ended with the Sens being outshot 17-7 with the Golden Knights really pushing hard to even things up.

With the Golden Knights still pushing hard in the second period and the refs really blowing hard on their whistles when it came to Sens players, Mark Stone banks the puck on the boards behind Fleury and it comes straight to Bobby Ryan’s stick and he makes no mistake. At this point, the score was 2-0 Sens with a frustrated Knights group not sure how to break through Craig Anderson who was doing the work of a magician. Then they finally managed to break through with Alex Tuch scoring his first goal of the game followed by a PPG goal by Ryan Reeves. The second period ended with a 2-2 score and the Sens continuing to give Vegas golden chances and being outshot 20-11 in the period.

The Sens managed to finish an ugly third period tied at 3 with a goal from Ryan Dzingel and some more heroics from Craig Anderson. Yes, the refs didn’t make things easy for the Sens but the Ottawa Senators TEAM made things even harder for themselves especially Boucher’s experimental case Tom Pyatt who seems lost on most occasions. The period ended with a staggering shot count of 15-4 in the third period. I guess they did get some Vegas luck stealing that point.

The luck didn’t last long though, as Mark Stone was called for a hooking penalty shot against Jonathan Marchessault who obviously did not let the opportunity pass him to win the game in OT. At least with other losses we could say it was fun, tonight was just a mess.

Notable Performances

a) Craig Anderson: the Ottawa Senators were outshot 53-22 and still managed to get a point out of this game, let that process in your mind a bit. You just have to wonder how long he’ll be able to maintain this pressure.

b) Matt Duchene: after scoring two goals against his former team, Duchene made sure to keep his hot hand going by opening the scoring tonight. He now has 4 goals in the last 3 games and 11 points in 10 games.

c) Thomas Chabot: he’s just so good and added 2 points to his total tonight.

Game Flow

Heat Map

Up Next

The Senators try to snap their 3-game losing streak against the Arizona Coyotes on Tuesday night. The game starts at 10 PM just as I finish an accounting midterm that I’m not prepared for so a win would be extremely appreciated.