The Ottawa Senators hosted the Eastern Conference-leading Boston Bruins in what was an exciting Thursday night divisional matchup. Despite trailing 2-0, they clawed their way to a second comeback in three games to bring it to overtime, where Bruins captain Brad Marchand sealed the deal for a Bruins win. Overall, the score isn’t telling of the impressive performance the improving Senators pieced together against a demanding opponent.
Jacques Martin’s Impact
Since becoming the interim head coach, Jacques Martin has brought a lot of stability to the Senators’ lineup. His losing record so far in his second tenure behind the Sens bench doesn’t reflect the fact that the team’s defensive play is continuously improving. In this game, it showed.
Let’s recap the Bruins’ goals from a defensive standpoint. The first goal was a set-up power play one-time shot by Bruins’ leading scorer David Pastrnak, which could’ve been avoided if the Senators had won the face-off. With the goal only being three seconds into the Bruins’ first power play of the game, not much can be said defensively. The second goal came on a long-range shot by Trent Frederic which went post-and-in on the rush to beat Joonas Korpisalo. Thomas Chabot was indeed screening his goalie, but there have been some worse plays this season. The game-winning goal was a 2-on-1 shot in overtime in which the defence did what they could to stop the play. It wasn’t too bad given that everything in overtime is risky and that both Tim Stutzle and Brady Tkachuk had quality chances right before.
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Finally, the statistic that shows the Senators’ overall improvement was in the shots on goal. In the first period, the Bruins got the first shot on goal but had their second over 17 minutes later. By the end of the game, the Senators outshot them 37-23. This goes to show that the recent defensive stability has been benefitting the whole team and helping them create offensive chances. As the saying goes, “Defence leads to offence.” In this game, however, the offence was quite a ride.
The Power Play
The Senators’ power play was confusing in this game. It went from being really bad to really good. I would’ve laughed in the face of anyone who would’ve told me that all their goals in this game would come on the man advantage after having watched their first four opportunities. But yet here we are.
The Senators had an unusually high amount of power plays in this matchup. It was Pastrnak tripping Brady Tkachuk that gave them their first of six power plays. Here, they couldn’t set up in the zone whatsoever and didn’t even get a shot on Jeremy Swayman. The story repeated itself on the second and even up to the last minutes of the third power play attempt, until Chabot directed a shot that almost beat Swayman.
Chabot got his revenge on the Bruins goalie on his team’s fifth power play when he finished a one-timer following a no-look pass by Drake Batherson. With just over three minutes left in the game, Vladimir Tarasenko blasted the puck from a sharp angle to beat Swayman on the short side.
Overall, this team’s man advantage was a roller coaster. The two goals they scored kept them in the game and gave them a point in the standings. However, they had a lot of chances to capitalize early on and weren’t able to do so. I guess they needed time to decipher the Bruins’ strong penalty-kill unit. The downside is that they shouldn’t expect such a high and unbalanced amount of penalties in their favour each game.
Another Big Matchup
For their next game, the Senators will once again host a top team in the New York Rangers on Saturday night. This may be another challenge, but their performance in this game has shown us not to count them out anymore.
Not only have the Rangers been struggling in January, but they also already lost 6-2 to the Senators this season back in December. Most importantly, they’ll be arriving at the Canadian Tire Centre after hosting the physically demanding and competitive Vegas Golden Knights at Madison Square Garden. This could be a turning point for Martin’s team, who will look to build on their recent success despite this overtime loss.
