NASHVILLE — The Ottawa Senators are hopeful a victory in the Music City can help propel them to a rise up the charts in the NHL standings.
As they prepare to face the Anaheim Ducks on Monday at the Canadian Tire Centre, the club closed out its two-game road trip with a 3-2 victory over the Nashville Predators at Bridgestone Arena on Saturday and finished with three of a possible four points.
Coming off a 4-3 overtime loss to the Dallas Stars on Thursday, the Senators are trying to find their way back into the playoff picture. The road won’t be easy, but the club is 5-2-1 in its past eight games and went into Sunday’s action nine points out of the final wild-card spot.
While they’ve captured nine of 10 points with a 4-0-1 record in their past five road games, the Senators need to find a way to bring some of that magic home with them. The club has won just two of its past eight games in Ottawa and that trend has to change.
The Senators have had a good approach on the road with a hard-nosed style and a commitment to being strong in their own end. No, they didn’t win in Dallas, but if Anton Forsberg had made the saves he needed to make then the result would have been different.
“We’ve got to find a way to bring that home,” coach D.J. Smith said Saturday. “We’ve got to bring the same mentality at home that we’ve been playing with on the road. That’s a hard, heavy style if we want to make a push and try to get ourselves back into this thing by Christmas.”
The Senators have seven games remaining before the NHL’s holiday break starts Dec. 24th. The club is playing better defensively and with a lot more consistency than it did earlier in the season, which is why the Senators have had recent success.
This club is playing closer to the style Smith and the coaching staff want. Mistakes will happen, but if everybody is giving a concerted effort then the Senators have the ability to have success on a regular basis.
“We’re trying to build that consistency,” said winger Alex DeBrincat, who scored his seventh of the season Saturday. “Earlier in the year we’d have two good games and then take one off and we can’t afford that.
“We’re trying to get back into it (the playoff race) so we have to come to the rink ready to play every day and right from the puck drop.”
That’s interesting because there have been nights this season where you can usually tell what you’re going to get into the first five minutes. We saw it last Tuesday when the club gave up two goals to the Los Angeles Kings and fell 5-2 at home.
Against the Predators, the Senators controlled the first 10 minutes of the first and, if not for Jusse Saros, then there’s a good chance the club would have been ahead. Down 1-0 in the second, a late power-play goal by veteran Claude Giroux tied it up 1-1 heading to the third.
It helped that the line of Shane Pinto, Drake Batherson and DeBrincat combined for five points in this victory. Batherson scored what turned out to be the winner to give the club a two-goal lead with 10:45 remaining in the third period.
There was no surprise when defenceman Nikita Zaitsev gave Batherson the player-of-the-game award in the dressing room afterwards. Batherson had a two-point effort, played more than 20 minutes and made a difference in a season in which he has struggled at times.
“They were really good,” Smith said of Pinto, Batherson and DeBrincat. “That was Drake’s best game in a long time. He’s physical, he’s big and he’s all over the puck. If they’re going to give us that every night, it gives us a lot more options and it makes it hard for the other to check us.”
The Senators haven’t had many breaks go their way this season, but they got one on DeBrincat’s seventh of the season. Attempting to throw the puck across to Batherson, Nashville’s Dante Fabbro redirected through Saros’ five-hole to give the Senators a 2-1 lead in the third.
“Puck-luck is a big thing,” DeBrincat said. “You see that one goes in, and then I have an empty net on that power play at the end (of the game) and I hit a post. Sometimes it goes one way then the other. It’s a good team win.”
Pinto said the Senators are playing with a lot more poise than they were earlier and that’s a big reason why they are having more success. The club moved its record to 5-2-1 when tied after two periods this season.
“It’s just part of maturing,” Pinto said. “In Florida (earlier this year), we came out in the third period and we weren’t really ready to play but the guys in the room, our leadership, have done a great job of getting us ready.
“That third period is just an important part of the game, especially the start, and we just did a good job. Now, we’ve got to continue to do that.”
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