TORONTO — These are the points that can come back to haunt you.
Twice up two goals on the NHL’s coldest team, including with less than 10 minutes to play, the Ottawa Senators were well aware of the opportunity they squandered with Saturday’s 4-3 overtime loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
“You don’t know which point is going to be the one that gets you in,” said goalie Craig Anderson.
The second one they failed to secure at Air Canada Centre kept them one shy of Boston for the Eastern Conference’s final wild-card playoff spot. The Sens, however, hold a game in hand and will play it Sunday against Florida.
That’s the good news.
Every team lets a few games get away each season, but this one seemed to carry an added consequence given the team’s unlikely playoff push. Ottawa is an incredible 15-2-2 since mid-February but seems in danger of coming back to earth.
The regrettable part of Saturday’s game was that they had Toronto exactly where they wanted them. Ahead 3-1 in the third period, the Senators were tantalizingly close to another victory. But they simply couldn’t contain the Leafs’ top line of Tyler Bozak, Phil Kessel and James van Riemsdyk.
“We stopped skating, we stopped forechecking,” said Sens forward Kyle Turris. “You can’t win like that.”
Securing one point could at least be considered a silver lining, as could the play of Anderson. He made just his third start since the end of January — a lingering hand issue is the culprit — and actually performed well given the circumstances.
That won’t show up in the stats as much as the degree of difficulty involved.
His first save of the night came on a point-blank opportunity from David Booth and he stuck with Joakim Lindstrom during an attempted deke on a penalty shot. Relative unknown Andrew Hammond has almost single-handedly saved the Sens’ season, but with him out injured, Anderson is carrying the team towards the finish line.
“Goaltending hasn’t been an issue for us for awhile,” said coach Dave Cameron.
At this critical juncture of the season, the games are basically solely about results. But there are some lessons to be learned in the letdown against the ice-cold Leafs.
For starters, no game can be looked past. Ottawa has a fairly tough schedule down the stretch but will be back at the ACC next Sunday. This setback will almost certainly be in the back of their minds then.
They also can’t afford to take the foot off the pedal, which they unquestionably did as Bozak scored a hat trick in the third period to force overtime.
“It’s a 60-minute game and you’ve got to play it out,” said Anderson. “We gave their best players some time and space there and they capitalized. That’s one it came down to.”
“That’s not how we play,” added forward Clarke MacArthur, who had an assist in his first appearance since Feb. 16. “We won’t win games like that. We were sloppy.”
Eric Brewer’s winning goal underlined the lack of execution. The Leafs buzzed around the crease after Bozak rang a shot off the post and none of the Ottawa defenders could clear the puck to safety.
Instead, the veteran defenceman swept it home for just Toronto’s ninth victory in the last 45 games.
“Same thing that happens every time we’re not on our game,” said Cameron. “The winning goal shows it all: We’re all around (the puck) and nobody’s through it.”
They’ll be back to work on Sunday against the Panthers, with a little less margin for error.
