Senators Spin Wheels in Their Playoff Chase

With 17 games remaining in their regular season, the Ottawa Senators are running in place as they try to chase down their first playoff berth in six seasons.

Saturday night, the Senators dropped a 5-2 decision to the Vancouver Canucks. Coming off a rousing 5-4 win in Seattle on Thursday, the Sens got off to a ferocious start against the Canucks, But a lack of discipline extinguished their momentum. 

"Took a lot of penalties that kind of killed the flow of the game a little bit, the rhythm," said Mathieu Joseph, who led all Ottawa forwards with 4:46 of shorthanded ice time in the game. "Some guys are going on a little bit more, some guys not. It's hard to be in the rhythm. And we gave them a couple of Grade A's that they put in the back of the net."

All told, the Senators took eight minors in the game, compared to four for Vancouver. Their penalty-killing group was strong — perfect until Andrei Kuzmenko iced the game into the empty net at 5-on-4 with 15 seconds left in the third period. 

Kuzmenko also got the Canucks on the board first. After a strong forechecking shift, the 27-year-old first-year player streaked down the slot to convert a pass from J.T. Miller for his team-leading 31st of the year at 15:05 of the opening frame.

In the second, with the Senators on their first power play of the game, Miller combined with Nils Aman on a shorthanded rush to make the score 2-0. 

It was Vancouver's fourth shorthanded goal in the last four games. It was also the third given up by Ottawa in their last five games, when they have been 0-for-16 with the man advantage.

"That's how it goes for 82 games," said Claude Giroux postgame. "You're going to be hot and you're going to get cold. You just need to find ways to put the puck in the next. It doesn't matter how."

After Aman and Sheldon Dries extended Vancouver's lead to 4-0, Giroux snapped Thatcher Demko's shutout bid with 6:21 left to play in regulation. Aman blocked the initial shot from Thomas Chabot before Giroux wristed the loose puck home for his 28th of the year.

Just over two minutes later, Nick Holden upped the pressure meter when he scored his second of the year to get Ottawa within two. And it looked like the Sens would have a golden opportunity to get within one after Quinn Hughes was whistled for a puck-over-glass penalty with 1:58 left.

But the 6-on-4 formation with goalie Mads Sogaard on the bench lasted just 10 seconds before Giroux was whistled for interfering with Tyler Myers. And after the play moved into the Ottawa zone and Sogaard came back in, Chabot was nabbed for holding the stick of Elias Pettersson with 1:26 left on the clock.

That effectively squashed any lingering comeback hopes.

"Tripping. Stick penalties. Not physical penalties," said frustrated coach D.J. Smith. "We can yell at the ref or whatever all we want. Maybe one of them, two of them, maybe, are arguable. But those ones at the end are penalties."

It's a double-edged sword. The Senators' high-tempo, heavy playing style is entertaining and seems like it should be tailor-made for an intense playoff series. And while Ottawa ranks second in the league in total hits so far this season (1,851), the club is also third in total penalty minutes (785 minutes) and tied for second with the Edmonton Oilers in total minors (255). Not ideal.

For a young team that's on the upswing, it will take time to learn how to maintain intensity while also playing with more discipline. But there may not be enough time to fully learn that lesson this season.

Though the Senators are 13-5-1 since they got hot in late January, they haven't managed to make any meaningful headway in the jammed-up Eastern Conference standings.

At the all-star break, they were 24-23-3 for 51 points in 50 games and sat 13th in the conference. The Pittsburgh Penguins sat in the second wild-card spot with 57 points in 49 games. 

Since the beginning of February, Ottawa is 9-5-1. And while Buffalo and Philadelphia have fallen off the pace, the Penguins, Islanders and Panthers have not.

Their records, over the same time frame:

After beating the Islanders on Saturday, the Washington Capitals are one point ahead of Ottawa at 71. But with a record of 5-8-1 for 11 points since the all-star break, they've lost ground — and sold off significant assets at the trade deadline. It seems unlikely they'll be able to maintain their position.

The Sens do hold games in hand on some of these teams. but in order to make the playoffs, they need to get ahead of three of them, including Washington. They also need to continue to hold off the Buffalo Sabres, who are 1-5-1 in their last seven games but still sit just one point back.

The Senators' challenge is much more daunting with both members of their regular goalie tandem on the shelf. Anton Forsberg isn't expected to be game ready until at least the end of the regular season as he recovers from the MCL tears he suffered in both his knees on Feb. 11, and Cam Talbot has a timeline of about three weeks on injured reserve as he deals with a lower-body injury. 

Mads Sogaard, 22, has now found himself thrust into the starter's role in this pressure-packed situation. 

With just two games of NHL experience on his resumé from last season, the 6-foot-7 Dane was 4-0-1 with a .920 save percentage in his first five appearances after Forsberg went down. But since Talbot's injury, his performance has dipped. In the first three games of the current road trip, he has given up 13 goals while going 1-2-1 and has seen his save percentage dip to .893.

Sogaard also received a visit from the trainer after appearing to injure himself on Vancouver's third goal, midway through the second period. But he stayed in and finished the game, making 25 saves.

Kevin Mandolese was recalled from the AHL's Belleville Senators earlier in the week and is expected to start for the second half of the Senators' back-to-back set on Sunday in Calgary (9 p.m. ET). 

Also 22, Mandolese posted a 1-1-0 record in his first two career NHL starts earlier this season, giving up just five goals in total for a promising .938 save percentage and 2.45 goals-against average.

The road trip will conclude on Tuesday in Edmonton. Over the subsequent two weeks, the quality of competition will continue to be stiff — with a couple of classic four-pointers thrown in for good measure.

Enjoy this time, Sens fans. This chase for a playoff berth is delivering the team's most meaningful games since 2017. Regardless of the final outcome, it should be something to build off in the years to come.