Senators rally from way back to down Predators, 4-3, in OT Teams trade three-goal periods, Giroux wins it in OT

In Ottawa, the Senators trailed the visiting Nashville Predators, 3-0, after the opening stanza on Monday night.

The Senators rallied back for three goals in regulation and defeated the Predators, 4-3, on Claude Giroux‘s marker at 3:36 of extra time.

“In overtime, the ice is always not that great,” Giroux said, “And I didn’t think I had a great angle, so I was hoping he’d shoot it. At the same time, I knew he was going to pass it, so it definitely felt pretty good.”

Mads Sogaard got the start for the Sens, but was given the hook in the first intermission after yielding the three first period goals, while making eight saves.

Joonas Korpisalo made 17 saves in relief for the win.

I didn’t want to wait because I think that we needed a bit of a shock,” Senators coach Jacques Martin said of pulling Sogaard. “Like, maybe to wake up the rest of the guys. So, we changed our goalies, changed our lines and kind of started from fresh and really tried to put some more pressure. I think our [defensemen] pinched more, and I thought we had more sustained pressure and were able to capitalize.

“Our goaltending made some big saves too. [Korpisalo] made some key saves when we made a couple of mistakes. I thought it was a great team effort.”

Ottawa improved to 19-25-2.

The Predators opened the game with a flurry of goals in the first period.

Michael McCarron  started the run at 8:26 for a 1-0 lead to Nashville.

Philip Tomasino followed that up at 16″30 for a 2-0 lead.

“I think there’s a lot we can learn from tonight, especially how to close out games,” Tomasino said. “I think, going forward, we can’t keep letting this happen.”

The Predators finished the run with a strike by Yakov Trenin  with 60 seconds left in the first. for the 3-0 lead. mes.

“In this league, when you’re up 3-0 and even when you’re down 3-0, you know the team that’s down is going to come out hard, it’s going to make a push,” Nashville’s Roman Josi said. “Nobody’s happy going into the first intermission down 3-0, so we knew they were going to make a push and we just have to be better than that.”

Nashville dropped to 26-22-2.

“They wanted it a little bit more in the second period. I thought fatigue set in [for us],” Nashville coach Andrew Brunette said. “We’ve gone on a bit of a stretch here and our legs weren’t quite there, and then our brains shut off in a few situations, face-offs, gave up two face-off goals, kind of easy offense. But we showed a little bit of grit down the stretch where we know we didn’t have our game, but [we] found a way to get a point.”

Ottawa got their rally going in the middle frame.

Drake Batherson  trimmed the deficit to 3-1 when he potted a marker at 5:21 of the second.

“I think we were pretty frustrated after getting smoked last game (7-2 against the New York Rangers on Saturday) and coming out in the first and being down 3-zip,” Batherson said. “Had to do something.”

Tim Stutzle cut the Nashville lead to one, at 3-2, when he struck just ahead of the midway point of the second period.

“I think they just outplayed, outworked us; they were just the better team,” Josi said. “In the second we kind of got what we deserved. For some reason we didn’t play our game in the second.”

Brady Tkachuk evened the game up, 3-3, at 17:10 of the middle frame.

“I don’t know how the other guys felt, but after the first, I knew we were coming back,” Stutzle said. “Just the way we were talking in the room, just everybody stood up in the room and said ‘Hey guys, we’ve just got to do a better job and help our goalies out.’”

The game went to extra time after a scoreless third period.

Juuse Saros made 31 saves in the loss.