Sens' Penalty Kill Fails Them in 6-2 Loss to Leafs
Bad, bad start to the playoffs
After an eight year wait, that's not how any of us wanted the first playoff game to go, and it's definitely not how we wanted the first Battle of Ontario in 21 years to go.
Not even a close loss, or a game you can confidently say they deserved to win. Maybe that's a good thing, because it'll give them a kick in the ass for game 2. Let's hope that's what happens.
The Leafs came out the gate absolutely flying and set the tone physically with a bunch of huge hits during the first shift, but the Sens weathered the storm. They had the edge in shots through the first few shifts, and didn’t look outmatched at all.
Unfortunately, things went pretty steeply downhill from there. Toronto got their first goal of the series when their fourth line blew past Chabot and Jensen. 1-0 Toronto.
I don’t know if it got in the Sens’ heads or what, but they completely forgot how to play defense for pretty much the rest of the first period. Sanderson swept the puck off the goalline after the Leafs’ fourth line almost scored again, and a few minutes later Marner scored on a breakaway - the Leafs’ second goal on just three shots. 2-0 Toronto.
My power actually went out seconds before the Marner goal, so I feel like I was spared, in a way. I wasn’t able to watch the rest of the first period until the intermission started and I could rewind the broadcast, and I was really normal and calm about that by the way.
Anyways, the Sens looked even more outmatched after the second goal. It was defensive breakdown after defensive breakdown, although they somehow managed to keep a big edge in shots on goal. All those shots came from way too far out, but they were shots on goal.
The one time the Sens did actually get to the net, it paid off. Drake Batherson cut the Leafs’ lead in two. 2-1 Toronto.
First career playoff goal for @drrakebatherson 👊#GosensGo | @NHL pic.twitter.com/RNe3HTSInz
— X - Ottawa Senators (@Senators) April 20, 2025
That would do it for the first period. Not ideal, certainly a few things to worry about, but not a total disaster.
Ottawa looked a lot better to start the second period. Brady Tkachuk got a breakaway and pulled off his most famous move: wrist shot directly into the goalie’s chest. Hell yeah.
Then Pinto got robbed, and it started to look like maybe things would be okay. What a great, brief time that was.
Things took a turn for the worse - again - when Tim Stützle got called for boarding. It was probably boarding, but the kind of call you only get this early in the playoffs. Kind of frustrating given how many similar plays weren’t called in the first.
Tavares scored right off the faceoff. 3-1 Toronto.
Not long after that, Greig crosschecked Tavares in the head. There’s your first controversial play of the series. Greig was initially given a five minute major, but on review it was changed to a two minute minor. The Leafs only got a few seconds of powerplay time before Gaudette got called for boarding. Another call that’s technically probably correct, but that you don’t often see called in that scenario.
They scored off the faceoff again. 4-1 Toronto.
The Sens played fine for the rest of the period. Good pressure, but not the level of urgency they needed this far behind in the game. They got one powerplay, and it was fine. They closed out the period with an extremely weak tripping call on Batherson.
The third period started well. Greig scored an absolutely greasy goal on a delayed penalty - probably the best Sens moment of the night. 4-2 Toronto.
.@RidlyGreig's got his first of the playoffs 👊#GoSensGo pic.twitter.com/QiAPfT7Grk
— X - Ottawa Senators (@Senators) April 21, 2025
Just a few seconds later, Morgan Reilly of all people got one back. Absolutely gutting. 5-2 Toronto.
Naturally, nothing of note happened until the next penalty, which went to Ottawa. Toronto scored on the powerplay again. 6-2 Toronto.
Look. Some of those penalties were very soft. If this had been a one-goal game I would have been ready to hunt down those refs with torches and pitchforks. But believe it or not, the refs do call penalties sometimes in the playoffs, especially in the first few games of the first round, and you have to be ready for that. If the penalty kill is so bad that it’s basically an automatic goal against, that’s your problem.
In true Battle of Ontario fashion, we ended the game with a bunch of fights, and a bunch of penalties. The Sens looked pissed. Hopefully they can channel that energy into playing better on Tuesday.
Okay. Breathe, everyone. That was a worst-case-scenario. Pretty much everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. Ullmark was off his game. Everyone kept missing their defensive assignments. They couldn’t contain Toronto’s stars. They couldn’t get in close to the net. They couldn’t play a physical game without getting penalized for it. The penalty kill was awful. It’s one game.
We’ve seen this team do all of those things during the regular season, and we’ve also seen them play a lot better than that. We know they can play better than that.
The Sens weren’t outmatched at 5v5, and losing game 1 is not the end of the world. They can win the next one.
Game Notes
- I'm not ready to sound the alarm on Ullmark just yet, but that was a bad game for him. He needs to be better.
- I really liked what I saw from the Cozens line. They've been the Sens' hottest line for a while now, and though you'd like to see more from the first line, it's good that this one is still getting results.
- I had my eye on the matchup of the Pinto line vs the Matthews line, because there was so much talk before the series of that being an important factor. I thought they did pretty well! Some chances on both sides, obviously, but for a "third line vs first line" matchup it seemed pretty even. Greig especially was... I'm not going to say he was his "best" self, because that feels wrong, but he was his most self.
- After the way Highmore played, I expect we'll see Nick Cousins on Tuesday.
