Wild Senators win highlights how important Ullmark is to their season

OTTAWA — Once in a while a game is so wild that the storylines change from shift to shift.

The final score was a gobsmacking 8-7, with the Ottawa Senators beating the Los Angeles Kings in overtime. But what a journey to get to that result. The Senators gave up two early goals—a chilly reminder of how they played last year. On three separate occasions the Senators came back from deficits (4-2, 5-4 and 6-5) to tie the game, and then briefly led by a goal in the third before allowing the Kings to tie it in regulation.

But the biggest storyline in this game, as it was for the Senators last season, was the goaltending. Missing their new star netminder, Linus Ullmark — out with a “strain” — the team used two different goalies and allowed seven goals on only 26 shots.

The Senators’ game day began with bated breath as Anton Forsberg, who had a wobbly season last year was in net, got the start. Adding to the angst was that Mads Sogaard was recalled from the Belleville Senators where he had lost in overtime the previous night.

Without Ullmark, the Senators reverted to the 2023-24 version of themselves.

The Sens carried the play in the first five minutes of the game, but then Forsberg allowed two goals in 55 seconds. He wasn’t quick enough to get a piece of Kavin Fiala’s power play one-timer from the slot. Less than a minute later, a puck bounced off Trevor Lewis’ body straight into the back of the net.

In the second, Brandt Clarke appeared to score a third Kings goal, but it was called back for goalie interference. Not long after, Adrian Kempe took a cross-seam pass on another power play, had the entire left side of the net open, and scored.

After that, Senators coach Travis Green yanked Forsberg for Sogaard. When asked after the game to explain the decision, he was blunt: "Three goals on 10 shots. Fitting to put a new goalie in. Nothing more, nothing less.”

If the Senators had something going in their favour it was that Kings goalie Darcy Kuemper, who stayed in for the entire game, was also having a bad night.

When Zack MacEwen lasered a 92.3 mile per hour slap shot at the end of a shift past Kuemper, it exemplified the goalie's struggles stopping pucks with his glove hand.

“Instead of just dumping it, I'm going to throw it on net,” said MacEwen. “I think it might have even surprised me with how hot it came off. I think it surprised the goalie too.”

Neither team was playing the way it wanted to, but the Senators, who spent most of the game fighting from behind, deserved credit for not flagging.

“Whenever adversity hit, we just stuck with it and got rewarded from our hard work,” said team captain, Brady Tkachuk.

Each time the Senators seemed back in the game, another soft goal against went in. Alex Laferriere responded to MacEwan's goal less than a minute later with Sogaard out of position. And after Drake Batherson and Thomas Chabot scored two goals in 19 seconds to even the game, Fiala notched another power play marker not a minute later to put Ottawa down again.

Though the game was tied 5-5 after two period, the Senators had 26 scoring chances to the Kings' 10, according to Natural Stat Trick. The difference was that half of Los Angeles' chances resulted in goals.

In the third the Senators took a brief lead on a Josh Norris goal, but five minutes later Tanner Jeannot tied it again on a shot from close range that Sogaard flailed at and, suddenly, it was a wild 7-7 tie again.

Incredibly, Sogaard who allowed four goals on 17 shots, had a better save percentage at (765) than Forsberg (.667) in the game.

It wasn't all bad for Ottawa, though. They carried the majority of the play, outshooting the Kings 41 to 26. They pushed the game to overtime where Norris was the hero, as he beat Kuemper with a wrist shot between the legs to get the Sens two points and back into a tie with Toronto atop the Atlantic Division at 2-1-0.

Despite the fact that Green has said he doesn’t want his team trading chances this season, he seemed pleased with the win.

“The resiliency that we showed; we talked about that a lot since day one, sticking with the process. I like how we did tonight.”

MacEwen’s max effort

Early in the game Artem Zub was crushed by Jeannot in a hit that forced the Senators defenceman out of the game. True to form, MacEwen stepped up for his teammate and squared off against Jeannot in response.

But what might be remembered most from MacEwen in this game was that he equalled his goal total from all of last season (two) in a single period Monday.

“I was told from the young age, always shoot a roller,” said MacEwen.

It was the first time MacEwen had had a multi-goal game since March 6, 2020. Fun early-season stat: According to Natural Stat Trick, MacEwen leads the NHL with 10.99 points per 60 minutes played, with two goals in just 10:55 of ice time.

Special teams high and lows

The Senators were fantastic on their power play, scoring on four of six. The top unit was firing on all cylinders with Norris, Batherson, Tkachuk, Tim Stutzle and Jake Sanderson all tallying two points, while Claude Giroux joined in on the fun with a goal on the second unit.

However, the Senators will have to improve a penalty kill that has given up a goal on four out of their last eight and ranks 28th in the league with a 63.6 PK percentage. Some of that could be due to poor goaltending: the Senators only gave up one high danger chance on Los Angeles' six power plays, according to Natural Stat Trick.

Injury woes to watch this week

This game highlighted and underlined how important Ullmark is to the success of this team. Green explained that he wasn’t sure if the injured netminder would play in the Senators’ next game on Thursday, a home contest against the 4-1-0 New Jersey Devils.

“Linus (Ullmark) is dealing with a strain, don’t expect him to be too long,” the coach said.

The Senators could be in a world of trouble if Ullmark is out any considerable amount of time.

Meanwhile, Zub left the game after the hit from Jeannot and went immediately to the green room for a concussion check and will be re-evaluated. Zub missed time last season with a concussion.

Lastly, Ridly Greig will be out one to two weeks with an upper-body injury.