Gambling senators continue to leave points unanswered

To win in the casino, you withdraw money, you don't continue playing. At the casino center of the world, Las Vegas, the Ottawa Senators played high-risk, low-reward hockey on Nevada Day. It was a shadow of a team that has often struggled to keep the lead in recent years.

For most of Friday night's game, the Senators outscored the Vegas Golden Knights 39-28, had more chances, played more and hit more. But once the Senators took the lead, they couldn't calm their game. In the NHL, good teams find ways to score points and wins; The Senators blew three leads and lost 6-4.

“It was a hard-fought game,” Senators coach Travis Green said. “We probably deserved more than no points from this game.”

The victory-o-point earned does not correspond to two points in the overall standings. The senators had themselves to blame. It was their best players who let them down with stupid turnovers, mistakes and costly penalties. For a team looking to reach the “next level,” the lack of game management was glaring.

The Senators opened the game strong and took an early 2-0 lead, but lost it within 21 seconds. It started with their two stars, Brady Tkachuk and Tim Stützle, jumping to their own blue line to thwart the offense, leaving Vegas player Nicolas Roy alone to score. Seconds later, after a strike from Nicolas Hague bounced badly off Jake Sanderson's leg, the score was 2-2. Lost momentum.

The Sens regained the lead 3-2. But this time Sanderson, Ottawa's best player through six games, threw a poorly executed exit pass directly to Mark Stone, the league's best puck thief, in hopes of starting a counterattack. The loss of the ball was punished with a tip shot from Ivan Barbashev, which ended the game 3-3.

Midway through the game, Green decided to relegate Michael Amadio to the third line in his first return to Vegas, where he won a Stanley Cup in 2023. Nick Cousins ​​moved to the front row with Stützle and Tkachuk and the three of them were a real blast. defeated Vegas 7-1.

Still, Cousins ​​was the catalyst for the late-game meltdown with a nervous breakdown after the Senators had regained the lead for the third time, 4-3. He took an ill-advised interference penalty with 5:05 to play when the Senators had held Vegas to just six shots in that period. It was a penalty that simply can't happen when a team is trying to keep the lead late.

Vegas used the power play to tie the game 4-4. A minute later, instead of throwing the puck into the Vegas zone to score a point, young player Ridly Greig decided to throw the puck into the net, resulting in a turnover. Vegas raced down the ice to score on an odd-man rush that was finished by Keegan Kolesar, giving the Knights a 5-4 lead with 2:11 to play and securing the win.

“We made a few mistakes that we probably would like to make again,” Green said.

It's not just one leak, but several small leaks that can sink a ship. The Senators played constantly and were sloppy when they took the lead.

It was the story of their season. Against the LA Kings in a barn burner, they let a 7-6 lead slip late in the third period. The same thing happened against the Tampa Bay Lightning when they squandered their 2-0 and 3-2 leads but narrowly secured a 5-4 victory in the end. Ultimately, good teams don't waste leads all the time; The Senators need to become game managers instead of gunslingers.

Linus Ullmark's return

For star goalkeeper Linus Ullmark, who had missed the last four games due to a strain, it was the eagerly awaited return to the goal area. He allowed five goals on 27 shots. It wasn't his best performance and the goalkeeper made it clear.

“If (the Senators) had had a capable goalie today, I would say they would have won 4-3,” Ullmark said.

On the surface, Ullmark's opinion of his piece seems overcritical. He conceded a goal because the puck sailed past the goal and hit a defender, while he scored another goal on a deflected shot. The goals he allowed were prime opportunities that Vegas capitalized on.

“Way too sloppy,” UIlmark said of his performance. “And in this league, in these types of games, you have to rely on the goalie to close the door. And not allowing these two to end up causing us to lose the game is something I take on myself.”

Interestingly, if you look at the numbers more closely, you can see where Ullmark is coming from. According to MoneyPuck.com, he had a better-than-expected target save of -3.05. According to naturalstattrick.com, he only saved three of six high-danger scoring chances, while allowing one medium-chance goal and one low-chance goal.

But his coach didn't agree with Ullmark's assessment.

“Yeah, I don’t know,” Green said. “You want your goalie to feel like he can win the game for you. I don’t think he needed to win the game for us.”

For the first time in a long time, the Senators' goaltending wasn't the primary cause of their failure.

Kudos to the fourth line

As disappointing as the result was, there were positives against the Golden Knights, especially from the fourth line. A next-man-up mentality is starting to emerge on this Senators team. Cole Reinhardt replaced the injured Shane Pinto, who was out due to an undisclosed injury, and made a behind-the-back heads-up pass to Adam Gaudette in the first two minutes of the game. As Gaudette pushed past Lost Las Vegas goaltender Adin Hill, the rookie gave Reinhardt his first career point in just his second NHL game.

Reinhard-Gaudette-MacEwen's line outscored Vegas 9-4, playing the third-most times of any Senators forward trio.

“You want to feel confident with your fourth line,” Green said. “And tonight, with Reinhardt up front, I wanted to see how he fits into the game. And I thought he gave us a few good minutes too.”

Later, Gaudette – who scored 44 goals in the American Hockey League last season – raced down the ice on the power play to fire a rocket past Hill and give the Senators a 4-3 lead. For a while it looked like it would win the game. Gaudette's two goals were his first since the 2021-22 season, which, funnily enough, came for the same team: the Ottawa Senators.