In Ottawa, the visiting Vancouver Canucks posted four goals in the third period on Tuesday night, and defeated the Senators, 6-4.
Bo Horvat hit for a pair of goals in the win.
“It wasn’t, maybe, the prettiest win,” Horvat said. “But we’ve had a lot of good games where we haven’t won this year. We owe a lot of thanks to our goaltender tonight, for sure, especially in the first couple of periods, keeping us in it.”
Spencer Martin made 37 saves in the Canucks win.
“We’re just trying to be mentally tough,” Horvat said. “It’s been a mental grind for a lot of this year and a lot of mental lapses by us. I thought we stayed mentally strong tonight.”
Drake Batherson staked the Senators to a 1-0 lead in the first period; Horvat evened it at 1-1 with his first goal of the night.
“I’ve been in those situations a ton of times before,” Martin said of allowing the early goal. “I didn’t get here laying down. Just kind of kept it going with some confidence.”
Travis Harmonic scored with 37 seconds left in the first period for a 2-1 lead to the Senators.
Ottawa dropped to 4-8-0 with the loss.
“We just didn’t get the job done,” Senators coach D.J. Smith said. “We looked very confident in the second period. We looked very confident in the first period, but then when you get into the third period, we just didn’t make the plays we needed to make. We turned pucks over and we gave them two goals.”
Ilya Mikheyev scored for Canucks in the middle frame to send the game to the third period, tied, 2-2.
“We’re not getting bounces,” Batherson said. “We had a few slide through the crease, and then it seems like they get one chance and it goes in.
“I feel like we’re playing pretty good. We had a lot of shots, a lot of chances, but the bounces aren’t going our way. But I’m sure it will turn around here soon.”
In the third period, Horvat hit for his second of the night, and Oliver Ekman-Larsson scored to give Vancouver a 4-2 lead.
Vancouver improved to 4-6-3.
“Just to hang on, with everything we’ve gone through, mentally, just to get one into the house,” Vancouver’s Connor Garland said. “We gave them a couple of chances to get back in it, but we battled hard and won.”
Ottawa’s Tim Stützle and Claude Giroux wrapped power play goals around a marker from Jack Studnicka for a 5-4 score.
“It’s definitely a tough one to swallow tonight because we did so many good things,” Senators captain Brady Tkachuk said. “The last bunch of games here, we’ve been playing well. We just need to get over that hump. Like I’ve been saying, we have all the belief in the world that we’re going to do it, that we’re going to get it done. It’s definitely frustrating, though.”
Elias Pettersson hit for an empty net goal with under a minute left for the 6-4 final.
Cam Talbot made 212 saves in the Ottawa loss.
You must be logged in to post a comment.