In Ottawa, the Senators broke out to a 5-0 lead over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday night, and then held off a late charge for a 6-3 win.
The victory ended a seven-game winless stretch.
Drake Batherson hit for two goals and four points on the night in the win.
“It’s obviously been too long since the last win,” Batherson said. “I thought we did a good job there for most of the game. Obviously, they made a little push there at the end, but [Gustavsson] was awesome and we’re fired up to get the win.”
Batherson had been on NHL’s COVID19 protocol.
“I was super pumped to be back in the room with the guys,” Batherson said. “It was definitely not the same game day [routine] as usual, but maybe we’ll have to stick to it now.”
Filip Gustavsson made 28 saves for the Sens win.
Ottawa improved to 4-9-1.
Evan Rodrigues scored twice, Kasperi Kapanen had a goal and an assist,
“I think that second period is unacceptable, and it ultimately lost us the game,” Rodrigues said. “Just no jam. We weren’t playing heavy, we weren’t hanging on to pucks. It got sloppy. It was a little bit of a track meet. It wasn’t our type of hockey. That’s not how we play.”
Pittsburgh dropped to 5-4-4.
Ottawa built a 3-0 lead off goals from Zach Sanford, Michael Del Zotto, and Parker Kelly.
“We started scoring goals and feeling good and we had it going real good in the third until they scored,” Senators head coach D.J. Smith said. “I thought we made some immature plays in front of our net. When you haven’t won in a while it’s hard to close the game out.”
Tim Stutzle and Batherson pushed the lead to 5-0.
“It was for sure one of my worst games this year,” Stutzle said. “But I’m happy about the win and happy about the goal.”
The Pens scored three straight in the third period before Batherson sealed the win with an empty-net goal.
“It was a bit of a messy game in a lot of ways,” Pittsburgh’s Mike Matheson said. “There were some breakdowns in coverage on both sides. I think from our perspective, that definitely wasn’t good enough. I think at the same time though, to go into that third period down 4-0 and then have it go 5-0, knowing that we have a game tomorrow night with travel, I think it would have been pretty easy for us to go, ‘You know, it’s not our night.'”
Casey DeSmith made 18 saves in the Pens loss.
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