Pavel Zacha scored with 5.6 seconds remaining in overtime to give the Boston Bruins a 3-2 win over the Ottawa Senators. It was sweet revenge for the Bruins who were thrashed 7-2 in Ottawa 12 days ago. Thursday marked the Bruins fifth consecutive victory since their loss at the Canadian Tire Centre.
For the Senators, this was their third straight game which ended tied after 60 minutes. They defeated the Calgary Flames in a shootout one week ago and have now lost back-to-back overtime affairs to Montreal and Boston.
The Senators were fortunate to gain a point on this night, especially after their play from the opening forty minutes.
Slow starts
Michael Amadio‘s goal 5:42 marked only the third occasion in 14 games this season, the Senators tallied the first goal in a game.
However, the team couldn’t take advantage of their good fortune, even with their Dad’s in tow on this short road trip. And after having four days off between outings, the Senators were still outshot 9-2 and out-attempted 21-10 by the Bruins in the opening period, with Amadio being credited each of their shots on goal.
Travis Green dissatisfied
Senators head coach Travis Green admitted his team wasn’t good, especially in the early going, though they rallied when they had to in the third period. The Senators head coach also expressed his disappointment with several of his players without singling any out.
“They just outworked us for about 35 minutes, and we kind of put our work boots on and started to play more like our game and got a little unlucky – lose the way we did in overtime there. We didn’t have a lot of good players tonight, to be honest. I thought we defended fairly well, but we spent a lot of time in our zone the first two periods because we weren’t playing well enough – got beat to a lot of loose pucks.”
Thomas Chabot concurs with his coach
Defenseman Thomas Chabot sided with his coach during his postgame availability.
“We didn’t play good. We didn’t win our battles. They won all the puck battles. They they wanted it more than we did. And it’s simple as that. And obviously good job coming back in the third. But I mean, at the end of the day, we’ve got to just be better as a team and be ready right off the get-go and play our game…It’s a couple mistakes here and there that we got to get rid of. It’s like I said, we weren’t playing great, probably for the first two periods, and that’s on us as players. We’ve got to be ready. We got to be better than that.”
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Bruins dominated at even-strength
Per Natural Stat Trick; there was plenty of “bad” to go around based on even-strength Corsi numbers.
During the first 40 minutes, the Bruins recorded a 38-20 shot attempt advantage while playing at even-strength.
The Senators fourth line who had been performing well of late, were dominated by the Bruins. The trio of Kurtis MacDermid/Lars Eller/Kurtis MacDermid didn’t attempt a shot on goal during their time together Thursday. The line had six shot attempts against.
On the night, all three players didn’t have anything going.
For the non-analytic reader; CF stands for Corsi For, meaning shots on goal + shot attempts blocked + shot attempts missed. CA describes the same events, but for the opposition.
CF CA Pct
Fabian Zetterlund 5 15 25.0
Lars Eller 3 17 15.0
Kurtis MacDermid 0 10 0.0
Other Senators players having rough outings include:
Nick Jensen 8 19 26.3
Tyler Kleven 10 18 35.7
Artem Zub 11 19 39.3
The Good
A bright light from albeit a disappointing game was the fact the Senators battled back in the third period. Claude Giroux notched the tying goal in a solid 20 minutes by the visitors.
The Senators outshot the Bruins 10-3, saving their best for last, so it appeared. Giroux’s point was his 1126th of his illustrious career, tying him for 64th on the NHL all-time list with greats Mike Bossy and Joe Nieuwendyk.
The combination of Amadio/Shane Pinto/Giroux was easily the team’s best with the trio combining for 10 of the Senators 22 shots on goal.
Despite the loss, the club has garnered points in six of their past games (4-1-2), and possess a 5-3-3 record minus their injured captain, Brady Tkachuk.
The Senators now head to Philadelphia for a 1pm ET Saturday. The Senators edged the Flyers 2-1 at home, October 23rd.
