In Ottawa, the visiting Colorado Avalanche took a 5-2 lead over the Senators into the third period on Thursday and held off Ottawa for a 5-4 win.
Travis Harmonic and Brady Tkachuk scored in the third period for the Senators to close the gap to one foal with more than six minutes left on the game clock.
Jonas Johansson made 32 saves in the Avs win.
“[Johansson] was good right from the start,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “I thought he was really good. He looked sharp. I mean, he made some big saves, and a lot of them he made look easy. … We had some breakdowns, and they got some seam passes and they’ve got some dangerous shooters. So, I thought they earned all of those.”
Colorado improved to 39-22-6, they have an active six-game point streak.
Th Avalanche took a 2-0 lead in the first period on goals from Cale Makar and Valeri Nichushkin.
“The first goal is the biggest goal, for me,” Bednar said. “We wanted to make sure that we were energized coming out tonight. Even though it’s a back to back for us (2-1 shootout win against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday), it’s their first game back from a [five-game] road trip and we know how difficult that can be.”
Ottawa got one back off the power play on a strike by Drake Batherson for a 2-1 score headed to the middle frame.
Ottawa dropped to 33-31-4.
“It was an emotional night,” Senators forward Claude Giroux said. “Obviously, the season is on the line, we played hard, and we gave ourselves a chance at the end there. It’s frustrating when you play hard and the result is not there.”
Colorado reclaimed the two-goal advantage on a goal from Mikko Rantanen at 4:23 of the second.
“I think we’re trending in the right direction again,” Rantanen said. “We’re getting together as a team, you know? This is the time that we need to do it. Only 15 or so games left, so we’ve got to really dial it up here.”
Just ahead of the midway point of the second stanza, Shane Pinto scored to get Ottawa back to wining one at 3-2.
“Disappointing for our guys,” Senators coach D.J. Smith said. “I thought we worked extremely hard and we got a result that we didn’t deserve.”
Colorado then scored twice in the final five minutes of the second period to give them a 5-2 lead.
Evan Rodrigues make it 4-2 at 15:17, and Lars Eller scored at 18:09 for the 5-2 lead.
“They started to bring it to us a little bit in the third, but I thought we defended well,” Rodrigues said. “Big face-offs at the end, and a huge save from [Johansson] at the end. We got the two points; that’s what we wanted.”
Mads Sogaard made 25 saves in the Senators loss.
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