In Ottawa, the Senators rolled up the Washington Senators on Wednesday night in a 6-1 decision.
Josh Norris iced in his first game of the season for Ottawa and hit for a double in the win. Norris returned to the lineup after recovering from shoulder surgery.
“It’s been a long road and some long days and we’re finally here now,” Norris said. “I think it’s kind of one of those moments. It’s weird, like, I think God’s pretty amazing, and I don’t want to get, like, too philosophical here, but yeah, it’s just a great night and happy we won.”
Anton Forsberg made 23 saves in the Ottawa victory.
Vladimir Tarasenko scored at 4:26 of the first period off a nifty pass from the left win for a 1-0 lead to the Sens.
“I didn’t love our start, and we’ve had really good starts,” Senators coach D.J. Smith said. “I thought it was sloppy, both sides. I just thought there were a lot of turnovers, but I thought it was a real mature start to the second period. We put it in, and we did what we had to do to take the game over.”
Norris hit his first of the night at 12:29 for a 2-0 lead.
“In the first period, I liked our game a lot,” Capitals coach Spencer Carbery said. “I thought it was probably our best 20 minutes of the season thus far. We’re down 2-1, but I didn’t think that was an issue from a score standpoint, being able to come back in the game.
“And then the second period, sort of a microcosm of how the year is going for this group right now, every mistake we make is ending up in the back of the net.”
John Carlson scored the Caps lone goal with under two minutes left in the first off a scramble down low.
“It’s a tough loss,” Washington forward Evgeny Kuznetsov said. “I feel like [every] mistake we made, it’s in the back of our net. When you play against this type of team, they probably feed energy off their good plays and goals, so we didn’t do a great job eliminating those chances.”
Norris hit for his double at 1:47 of the middle frame for a 3-1 advantage to Ottawa, and Artem Zub struck three minutes later for a 4-1 advantage.
“It’s hard to say that you’d see that in his first game back, but he’s such an athlete,” Smith said of Norris. “Josh is as good as anyone at anything out there. So, for his first game back, you wouldn’t think that, but he’s been putting in a lot of time and clearly he’s in shape, and give the development guys credit.”
Claude Giroux added a marker in the 16th minute of the second for a 5-1 lead for the Sens.
Jake Sanderson had all night to skate into the mid slot area from the blue line, with the puck, and wristed home the 6-1 final strike at 11:48 of the third.
Darcy Kuemper made 23 saves in the Caps loss.
“We’re leaving our [defensemen] out to dry a little bit with the puck in our own zone,” Washington forward Dylan Strome said. “And maybe the forwards aren’t doing a great job of coming back and helping them out. I think we’re leaving [Kuemper] out there to dry. We haven’t gotten a lot of shots in all three games. … We’re 1-2-0, and could easily be 0-3-0.”
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