In Ottawa, the visiting Nashville Predators were looking to correct a few things in their road game.
That didn’t work out as well as hoped.
The Senators jumped on the Preds early in the game and posted a 3-0 lead after the first 20-minutes of play.
Thomas Chabot scored OT winner for Sens – file photo courtesy of Lewis Bleiman
Maxime Lajoie, Ryan Dzingel and Brady Tkachuk staked the Sens to the lead with first period goals.
One positive to come from the game was the Preds’ rally as they scored three-unanswered goals in regulation to force overtime.
But, the Senators’ Thomas Chabot ended the Nashville push when he scored just 21 seconds into the extra session for the 4-3 Ottawa win.
“When [Chabot] takes off he’s tough to follow,” Senators coach Guy Boucher said. “In overtime, with open space like that, he’s so dangerous. I’m really happy because in the second period, we were disappointed at the number of times we didn’t shoot and felt we lost momentum because of it. In overtime, instead of looking for the fancy play, he shoots and it pays off.”
Craig Anderson made 31 saves to get the win.
“Our guys did a great job as far as settling down and not panicking, and just kind of rolling with the punches there,” Anderson said.
Roman Josi struck for two goals and Craig Smith added a single marker early in the third period for the Predators.
“[We showed] a lot of character coming back,” Josi said. “Definitely not a good start. I’ll take a lot of responsibility for that, too. I wasn’t good in the first. … In the first, we were just too slow. They were faster than us. We didn’t win battles. We didn’t battle hard enough.”
[WATCH: All Predators vs. Senators highlights]
Pekka Rinne git the start, but as the NHL has shown, coaches have no fear pulling their goalies; Rinne was yanked after making just eight saves in the first period on 11 shots.
Juuse Saros finished up the game and made 11 saves the rest of the way.
“I’m frustrated, disappointed. We came here to play a game. We didn’t do what we were supposed to do, and so that is not good enough, especially when you’ve lost as many on the road as we have,” Predators head coach Peter Laviolette said after the loss.
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