In Ottawa, the Senators and Boston Bruins put a show of offense through 40 minutes of play on Tuesday night.
The Senators outscored the Bruins, 3-1, in the opening frame. Boston replied in the middle frame with a 4-3 advantage in goals,.
Claude Giroux set the table with a goal just 68 seconds into the game for a 1-0 Ottawa lead.
Brady Tkachuk and Drake Batherson followed that up with two goals for a quick 3-0 lead in the game.
“That was pretty amazing,” Tkachuk said of the atmosphere. “I don’t think in all the rinks that I’ve [been to] I’ve felt that excited for a game before. So, credit to all the fans and all the support that came out tonight because that was an amazing experience.”
Patrice Bergeron put the Bruins on the board lat in the period to give them life headed to the middle frame.
Anton Forsberg made 28 saves in the win, the first of the season for Ottawa.
Within 90 seconds of the start of the second period, the Bruins tied the game off strikes from David Krejci and A.J. Greer.
“We’ve clearly got to learn how to handle those situations,” Ottawa coach D.J. Smith said of giving up a three-goal lead. “But, in saying that, we stayed on them, we had lots of chances and we won the game.”
Ottawa did handle it with three straight goals for a 6-3 lad.
Shane Pinto, Tim Stutzle,and Mark Kastelic scored in the outburst.
Boston handled their own situation with goals from Nick Foligno and David Pastrnak, to close the deficit to one goal.
“These games happen every once in a while,” Pastrnak said. “It was obviously our third game in four days. We kept it positive. We came back twice.
“Hockey is a long season. It’s still early and these kinds of games are going to happen. You see it around the League all the time. Just sometimes the puck goes into the net both ways.”
Artem Zub scored the only goal of the third period to give the Sens the 7-5 final.
“Offensively, we did all the things we wanted to do tonight, but clearly we gave up too much,” Smith said. “There were a lot of nerves, you could see it on the bench. I thought we played really well in the first two games [of the season] and didn’t get the results, so we’ll just take the win and move on.”
Jeremy Swayman got the start for Boston and made 19 saves before getting the hook in the second intermission; he surrendered six goals.
“It’s disappointing, especially with the way we bounced back,” Swayman said. “The effort we gave was unbelievable and I feel like I let the boys down. I am definitely going to go back to the drawing board and do whatever I can because, I guarantee you, I’m going to make this up.”
Linus Ullmark made five saves in a mop up role in the third period.
“I thought we hung [Swayman] out to dry,” Boston coach Jim Montgomery said. “His first two shots on net are 3-on-2s coming down 100 miles per hour. We didn’t get in anybody’s way. And that’s a tough way to start a game on fresh ice.”
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