OTTAWA — Despite trailing 3-0 after the first period, the Ottawa Senators remained confident they were going to win Monday night.
The Senators scored three goals in the second period to tie the game, and Claude Giroux scored in overtime to complete the comeback in a 4-3 victory over the Nashville Predators.
“It’s great to see how we responded,” said Giroux, whose goal at 3:36 of the extra period was his 15th of the NHL season.
"We didn’t change our game, we didn’t try to do too much, we just let the game come to us and when we had the chance, we were able to score. This one feels pretty good.”
Drake Batherson, Tim Stutzle and Brady Tkachuk also scored for the Senators (19-25-2). Joonas Korpisalo stopped all 18 shots through two periods of play after replacing Mads Sogaard, who stopped eight of 11 first-period shots.
The Predators looked well on their way to cruising to victory after Michael McCarron, Philip Tomasino and Yakov Trenin scored first-period goals for the visitors (26-22-2). However, the Predators couldn’t find a way to close it out.
Juuse Saros made 31 saves.
“I think they just outplayed, outworked us, they were just the better team,” said Nashville captain Roman Josi. “In the second we kind of got what we deserved. For some reason we didn’t play our game in the second.”
The Senators could have mailed in the final 40 minutes after their first-period clinker, but after giving up seven unanswered goals on Saturday in a 7-2 loss to the New York Rangers, the home team was determined to fight back on Monday.
“I don’t know how the other guys felt, but after the first, I knew we were coming back,” said Stutzle. “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 Predators had an opportunity to end the game early in overtime when Denis Gurianov broke in with Josi on a 2-on-0, but couldn’t even manage a shot. The Senators went back the other way and ended the game.
“I think you learn to close a game down when you’re not at your best or at least give yourself a chance to get a point,” said Predators coach Andrew Brunette, of what his team could learn from this.
“Throughout the course of the season we gave away a lot of points where we got nothing out of it. So tonight, we were able to grind away and get a point. You get a 2-on-0 breakaway in overtime and you don’t get a shot? I think we had three two-on- (nothings) with no shots and it’s kind of been the story for us for most of the year.”
Both teams had chances in the third but were unable to capitalize.
The Senators took over the game in the second period. Batherson got the home team on the board at the five-minute mark when he was able to settle a bouncing puck in front to beat Saros. Stutzle made it a one-goal game at 9:20 and Ottawa completed the comeback late in the period off a faceoff win by Josh Norris and Tkachuk spinning around to get a shot off for his 21st.
“We showed our maturity from all the lessons that we’ve learned,” said Tkachuk. “In the past, it could’ve gotten away from us, but we stuck to it, stuck to our game and really emphasized doing it as a team versus trying to do it individually.”
Nashville opened the scoring at 8:26 when Josi fired a shot from just inside centre ice and it wrapped around and popped out front to McCarron who fired a shot past Sogaard.
Tomasino made it 2-0 when he won a foot race and roofed a puck over Sogaard. Trenin completed the first period scoring when Sogaard was caught way out of position.
NOTES
Dominik Kubalik returned to Ottawa’s lineup after missing four games making Mark Kastelic and Zack MacEwen healthy scratches. Nashville’s Tyson Barrie and Kiefer Sherwood were healthy scratches.
UP NEXT
Senators: Travel to Detroit to play the Red Wings on Wednesday.
Predators: Host the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 29, 2024.
Lisa Wallace, The Canadian Press
