Recap: Bruins vs Senators

On Thursday night, the Ottawa Senators played in front of a sold-out Canadian Tire Centre against the Boston Bruins, who were leading the Eastern Conference. Ottawa managed to salvage a point from the Bruins with a late goal after a hard and defensive struggle, but they were unable to score in overtime.

While the Bruins were playing their second game in two nights, Ottawa tried to exert pressure early in the contest. After the Sens made a push early on, the game was significantly resolved by an early match between Mark Kastelic of Ottawa and Derek Forbort of Boston.

As the period was in it’s final minutes, with the Senators were leading in shots 9-2, Jacob Bernard-Docker took a holding penalty and the Bruins scored three seconds into the power play with 1:24 remaining in the first.

The second period opened much like the first with a lot of physical defensive play at both ends of the ice. Ottawa’s power play began to make in-roads by the mid-point of the period and generated several scoring chances. However, strong goaltending by Jeremy Swayman kept the Senators off the scoresheet.

Following Ottawa’s third power play Thomas Chabot raced down the left wing firing a shot behind Swayman that somehow stayed out of the Bruins net. The play came back the other way and Trent Frederic snuck a seeing eye shot past Joonas Korpisalo to give the Bruins a 2-0 lead.

With less than two minutes left in the half, the Senators had one more chance to use the man-advantage advantage. Ottawa kept the pressure on the Bruins by carrying over the momentum from their earlier power plays. When Chychrun finally found Stützle on the wall, he walked the puck along the line. Stützle carried the puck into the corner, where Batherson found Chabot for his second goal of the season with a no-look pass into the slot. The Senators reduced the Boston advantage in half going into the third inning despite a melee that resulted in no penalties for either club.

The third period started heavily in the Senators end. However, Korpisalo and the Senators defense weathered the storm. From that point in the game onward Ottawa kept increasing zone-time and pressure in the Boston end. Just after the mid-point of the game it appeared Ottawa’s hardword had paid off when Josh Norris won a tough battle in front of the net and snuck the puck past Swayman. The referees on the ice called out the fact that Mathieu Joseph had made contact with the puck using his glove and waved the goal off. Less than two minutes later Parker Kelly drew a sixth Bruins penalty.

The Senators final power play of the night led to three quality chances before Vladimir Tarasenko sniped a shot from the left hashmarks ti tie the game with 3:18 left to play!

The Senators started Thomas Chabot, Vladimir Tarasenko, and Josh Norris in overtime. The team survived the initial Bruins attack thanks to two crucial saves from Korpisalo. After regaining possession of the puck, Ottawa switched lines, starting Tim Stützle, Brady Tkachuk, and Jake Sanderson. Stützle broke to the net and was able to get a shot off as the Senators stabilized and won the zone. Brad Marchand’s goal for the Bruins sealed the victory on a counterattack after the rebound cleared Tkachuk’s stick.

Three Thoughts

Thomas Chabot had a season high seven shots on goal to go with his goal assist.

Claude Giroux led Ottawa forwards in ice-time with 22:36 against the division rivals from Boston.

Ten players had double-digit hits in this physical affair including Pinto, Jospeh, Kastelic and Chychrun who all recorded a team-high three hits.

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