Sens Continue to Lose the Exact Same Way Over and Over Again, Falling 6-3 to Golden Knights

They're not even trying to make things interesting.

I don't know what else there is to say. They played alright in the first. They collapsed in the second. Once they fell behind the goals against just kept coming. They didn't put up a fight until time was already running out. Rinse. Repeat.

They didn’t even give us a chance to get our hopes up this time around, as Jack Eichel scored on Vegas’s first shot of the game. Ottawa generally looked outmatched early on, but got a lucky break on the powerplay, when Vegas’s goaltender, in his return from injury, couldn’t get down quickly enough to stop a shot from Josh Norris. Not the prettiest goal of all time, but we’ll take it!

That had HEAT! 🔥#GoSensGo pic.twitter.com/ZvPRwO6hAh

— Ottawa Senators (@Senators) December 18, 2023

The Golden Knights made a goaltending change after the first goal, but Ottawa beat the new guy too, as Greig found the back of the net on the second powerplay of the game. Nice to see the powerplay finally working!

Riddler's just too quick with it! 💨#GoSensGo pic.twitter.com/lAwCgcNiDA

— Ottawa Senators (@Senators) December 18, 2023

Unfortunately, any good vibes from taking the lead quickly evaporated when Korpisalo let in an absolutely brutal goal from way too far away. He simply has to have that one.

Of course, the Sens did second period things in the second period. They held on for a solid ten minutes before the floodgates opened. It started with a powerplay goal on a breakaway - I don’t know what penalty kill formation even allows that to happen - and then they promptly gave up another one shorthanded. Just like that, they were down by 2. If this was any other team, there’d still be hope, but this is the Ottawa Senators, and if they’re losing by the end of the second period, we all know there’s no point in even watching the third.

Just to rub it in, the Golden Knights got another one with less than a minute left before the buzzer. Was that really necessary?

Even though the game was all but over, the NHL insisted on inflicting a cruel and frankly unnecessary punishment on the Sens by forcing them to play the third period, prolonging their humiliation for no reason except perhaps the sick and perverse enjoyment of the Vegas fans in attendance.

Vegas scored just one more goal, a powerplay marker toward the start of the third. The Sens put up so little fight in the final 20 minutes that Vegas’s goaltender, Logan Thompson, who had taken over the crease after Aiden Hill’s injury, stayed in net despite being very obviously injured himself to the point where he could barely move from side to side. The Sens didn’t score on him until there was about a minute left, by the way. They could at least try to change up the script a little bit.

Game Notes

• Angus Crookshank made his much-anticipated NHL debut tonight, and although we didn’t see much of him, he did well. The fourth line looked better than it has pretty much all season.
• Josh Norris was absolutely on one tonight. His one goal was a bit lucky, but he was an offensive force on every shift, pulling out nifty moves in front of the net and showing off his famous one-timer. He even came close to a shorthanded goal in the second period. Possibly his best game all season.
• There is something fundamentally wrong with this Ottawa Senators team. It's not that they're playing well but not getting the bounces. They can’t connect on passes. They’re making boneheaded decisions every time they get the puck. No one can shoot. They look like they've quit.
• Stützle looks like he’s overthinking everything, but he also has a whole lot of tape showing on the back of his neck, so who knows what’s up with him.
• This was a game of both awful defence and awful goaltending on the Sens side. I don’t think you can blame either one more than the other. Korpisalo let in at least one inexcusable goal, and the Sens played so badly in front of him that he didn’t have a chance on many of the others.

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