'Seemed like we folded': Senators crash back to Earth after promising run

OTTAWA -- Ever have one of those Saturday nights?

For fans of the Ottawa Senators, there has been one too many. 

The Senators looked to be cruising at home, in front of a capacity crowd, against the New York Rangers. 

That was their first mistake. Thinking they had this game under control. 

Ottawa took a 2-0 lead and watched it blow up in their face like a bad firecracker during a second period that had all the elements of the ugly early season losses they thought were out of their system. 

The Rangers’ second goal, by Chris Kreider, was a weak one to give up by Joonas Korpisalo, and may have been the moment the bench sagged, although there were too many other candidates for letdown moments to be sure. 

“It’s not a good goal but that’s where you’ve got to have resiliency,” said interim head coach Jacques Martin. “You’re going to have some highs and lows. And it just seemed like we folded. 

“When I first came on board (in late December) I think I saw that, but I thought we made a lot of progress. Not only on the ice but as far as being more resilient and being able to match the ups and downs of the game. Today it was really a step backward.”

No argument there. 

Five unanswered goals by the Rangers in the second period and two more in the third had to have Senators’ management wondering what happened to that disciplined Ottawa team that had taken points in six of its past seven starts while holding the opposition to three goals or less in the five previous outings. 

So much for that trend. 

Three rapid-fire Rangers goals – Nos. 2, 3 and 4 came in a span of two minutes, 43 seconds – had the Senators reeling. Senators captain Brady Tkachuk was in the penalty box for the first three of New York’s goals, after responding to a hit on Tim Stützle from Connor Mackey. 

To his credit, Tkachuk admitted it was not a dirty hit on his linemate. 

“Of course, I wanted to be on ice to help minimize what happened, it’s just the way it goes,” Tkachuk said. “It was a clean hit. If it was dirty, they would have called a penalty. But you never like to see Timmy get knocked over. He’s a pretty strong kid so for him to get knocked over – you don’t want anybody to take a run at one of your best players. So I stood up for him and guys would do the same for me.”

After spotting the home side a two-goal advantage in the first period, the Rangers bounced back and literally bounced one in off Ottawa starter Korpisalo. From behind the Senators net, Alexis Lafreniere banked the puck off the pads of Korpisalo as he was sprawled out in his crease. 

That was at 5:51. No biggie, right? The Sens still held a 2-1 lead and had been playing well to that point. 

But when Kreider, that renowned Sens killer, skated down the left wing and fired a shot from the top of the circle that Korpisalo could not catch cleanly, here was the Uh-Oh moment as the puck trickled into the net. 

It was the trickle that sparked a deluge. A goal 39 seconds later by Zac Jones from Artemi Panarin. Another two minutes, four seconds later on a tip-in by Jonny Brodzinski. 

That ended Korpisalo’s night, four goals yielded on 17 shots, as he was lifted in favour of Mads Sogaard. 

Blake Wheeler made it a five-goal period, taking a pass from former Senators centre Mika Zibanejad to beat Sogaard at 16:54 of the fateful second period. 

Sogaard stopped nine of the 11 shots he faced. The Rangers also scored one into an empty net. 

No one could have seen what was coming, off the auspicious beginning. 

While the Rangers outshot the Sens 12-7 in the first period and had the only power play over the first 20 minutes, they still went to the visitors’ dressing room down 1-0 after one. 

Tkachuk, celebrating his Bobblehead Night in style, created a turnover by stealing the puck from Rangers defenceman K’Andre Miller and skated in alone to beat Quick. 

As he likes to do in close, Tkachuk pulled the puck from his forehand to backhand and tucked it between the pads at 11:43 of the first period. 

The goal was Tkachuk’s 20th of the season in his 45th game and is the fifth time in his young career he has reached the 20-goal mark. 

It was part of a larger milestone, as Claude Giroux drew an assist on the play, for No. 700 on his career. After the game, Giroux was so upset about the loss he wasn’t interested in celebrating his 700th helper. 

“I’m not too worried about that right now,” Giroux said. 

Early in the second period, a quick power-play goal by Jakob Chychrun extended the Senators’ lead to 2-0. Setting up the big collapse.

The Rangers were serious about making amends for their loss against Vegas the night before. Not to mention their 3-6-1 run over the previous 10 games.

They were clearly unfazed by missing their captain, Jacob Trouba, who was handed a two-game suspension a few hours before puck drop for an elbow to the head of the Golden Knights’ Pavel Dorofeyev in that Friday game. 

Once the blueshirts got rolling, they were a runaway train from Penn Station. 

Seven unanswered goals from the 5:51 mark of the second period to the 17:52 mark of the third. 

Wowza. 

Mathieu Joseph, who had another strong game and continues to create scoring chances on the penalty kill, insists he isn’t concerned about the Senators rebounding from this rout.

“I’m not worried about it, games like that are going to happen,” Joseph said. “We lost our maturity a little bit in the second period in the sense that we didn’t do what we’ve been doing – just placing the puck in the right area. We were trying to make plays and on a long change in the second period, it’s hard. Just turn the page on this one.”

The Senators will turn to the annual team skills event Sunday afternoon at the CTC. 

On Monday, this three-game homestand ends with a visit from the Nashville Predators. 

“We can’t feel sorry for ourselves,” Martin said. “We’ve got a game Monday night.”