Sens waste two-goal lead, fall 4-2 to Jets

If tonight showed us the Ullmark-less Sens, it's going to be a bleak next few games. The Sens outshot the Jets 36-23, but lost 4-2, with Mads Søgaard taking the loss. In fairness to Mads, the shot clock was mostly fluff, with Natural Stat Trick having the expected goals at 59% for Winnipeg (61% at 5v5), and also having the expected goals for Winnipeg at 3.86, vs. 3.27 for Ottawa. In other words, the Sens gave up quality and tried to compensate with quantity, but that was never going to work against a goalie of Connor Hellbuyck's calibre. Still, I'm not confident moving forward that these Sens can overcome shaky goaltending, especially with their next couple games against nearly-as-tough opponents in the Wild, Stars, and Blues.

The Sens started off the game really well. The first period saw the Sens execute an extremely effective penalty kill that led to them getting a powerplay, on which Tim Stützle was the beneficiary of a perfect Drake Batherson pass:

While Mads Søgaard didn't look extremely comfortable, he was good enough for the Sens to maintain their 1-0 lead.

A high-sticking double-minor early in the second allowed the Sens to double their lead, with Thomas Chabot floating in a shot that Ridly Greig could redirect in.

Josh Norris nearly made it 3-0, but he failed to get the puck over Connor Hellbuyck's pad. That was about the end of good things for the Sens though, as the Jets came roaring back. First, Kyle Connor was left all alone in front for Mark Scheifele to hit him with a perfect pass — no chance for Søgaard. Then, Scheifele raced in and was forced to his backhand, but Søgaard insisted on keeping his blocker within 4 inches of the ice despite (allegedly) being 6'7", so Scheifele got an undeserved goal. Seriously, I'm not sure how he puts this over the blocker.

The second ended 2-2. The Sens did actually get the first powerplay of the third, but the Jets got the best opportunities to score on said powerplay, which foreboded what was to come. Gabe Vilardi got a powerplay goal to give Winnipeg their first lead, then Nikolaj Ehlers took advantage of some really weak gap control by the Sens to skate in and make it 4-2. The Sens had started off by controlling the game, but seemed to have no answer after the halfway mark. Chabot and Stützle both had great chances to score in the last few minutes, but couldn't solve Hellebuyck. The Sens missed a few good chances in the first half of the game that they didn't bury, and it came back to bite them in a 4-2 loss.

Thoughts:

• Thomas Chabot felt like the Sens' best defenceman tonight, and was definitely the best at driving offence. He deserved better than a solitary point on the night.
• I don't want to harp too much on Mads Søgaard, so I'll just say one more time, he seems to have a penchant for making himself small when facing down a shot. In his defence though, it's probably hard to unexpectedly get called up, not even get an NHL practice because of the Christmas break, and then stare down the toughest team in the league. He looked better than he did in limited NHL action last season.
• It's nice to see some of the big guns in Timmy and Brady Tkachuk get on the scoreboard, even in a loss. They'll need to keep that up to get the Sens back to winning.
• What's happened to Adam Gaudette? Yes, his early goal-scoring pace was unreasonable, but he seems to be doing almost nothing now. And unlike some of the bottom-six guys, he doesn't add much when he isn't scoring.

Game Flow: