Stay away from Ottawa. Well, at least the Senators that is.
On Monday night, the Sens handed the Calgary Flames a thumping in a 5-1 decision.
Drake Batherson struck for two goals for the Sens, his sixth straight game with a marker.
“I couldn’t tell you what’s going on,” Batherson said. “I said to the boys, ‘I think the last time I scored six like that was maybe peewee.’ I don’t know. Everything I’m just shooting is going in. The boys are making some great plays for me.”
Matt Murray made 27 saves with some offense for a change for a pace.
“He was dialed in from the get-go, and he was even better in the third” Senators coach D.J. Smith said. “He dialed in, gave our team a chance to get our feet going, and certainly was the best player on the ice for us.”
Milan Lucic scored the Flames’ only goal, again.
“It’s unacceptable. We can’t have everyone show up on Saturday (6-3 win against Ottawa) and then expect it to be easy tonight,” Lucic said (on SN960 The Fan). “And I think that’s our problem right now. Sometimes we want it to be too easy, but when we play the right way, play hard and we earn it and work for it, we get the results. But when we don’t, we’re going to continue to have games like this.”
“We find a way to shoot ourselves in the foot time and time again. That’s on us.”
Artem Anisimov staked the Sens to a 1-0 lead in the first period.
Ottawa improved to 8-15-1.
“It’s (Batherson) evident just how talented he is,” Murray said. “He’s a great shooter, he’s a smart player, he’s obviously in the right spot a lot. One of the ways he scores goals is he just puts himself in the right spot. The puck comes to him and he buries his chances.”
Colin White, empty net, and Evgenii Dadonov closed out the scoring in the late minutes of the third period.
“D.J. always says that when you look at the best teams, they’re the most consistent every night and they know how to play with a lead and also when they’re down a goal,” Batherson said. “We’re trying to learn off of teams like that and we’ve been getting better. Tonight we did a great job. We didn’t sit back in the third.”
The Flames dropped to 10-11-1.
“We shot ourselves in the foot an awful lot,” Flames head coach Geoff Ward said. “I thought our first period was good and then we played a little bit of turnover hockey, we lost our third man high. There were a lot of things that happened that they were able to capitalize on.
“There’s nobody that’s going to feel sorry for us. We’ve got to come up with the solutions ourselves. As a team, we’ve got to be more committed to playing the game the right way.”
David Rittich made 31 saves in the loss.
You must be logged in to post a comment.