The Senators dumped the Blue Jackets on Tuesday night, improving to 8-2-2 in their last 12 games.
Brady Tkachuk's second career hat trick led the Ottawa Senators past the Columbus Blue Jackets 6-3 on Tuesday night at the Canadian Tire Centre
Claude Giroux also scored for the Senators, as did Ridly Greig, fresh off his “Enrage Leaf Nation” Tour. Giroux also added two assists and was on the ice for more than three minutes straight as the Sens were trying to close the game out.
With injuries to Jake Sanderson and Artem Zub, and their usual salary cap headaches, the Senators had to muddle through this one with only five defencemen. Anton Forsberg made 36 saves in his first game since coming off injured reserve this week.
The Blue Jackets are the only team in the Eastern Conference with a worse record (16-26-10) than the Senators (22-25-2), who are inching toward the .500 mark with their fine play of late (8-2-2 in their last 12 games).
The Senators didn’t have much luck in the early going. First, Jacob Bernard-Docker redirected a centring pass into his own net to give Columbus the early 1-0 lead. Then Vladimir Tarasenko hit the post on a totally open net.
But moments later, Brady Tkachuk got loose with two goals in less than a minute. Josh Norris provided the room service, sending a beautiful one touch pass to Tkachuk who made no mistake. 48 seconds later, he buried his own rebound to give the Sens a 2-1 lead.
Ottawa continued to pour it on in the first on a beautiful, top-shelf snipe from Giroux, and then what appeared to be a breakaway goal by Mathieu Joseph. However, Joseph's goal was overturned as he made illegal contact with the goalie in his crease. Joseph and Shane Pinto had some glorious chances on the night they couldn't polish off.
Early in the second period, Ridly Greig deflected a point from the shot to make it 4-1 Senators, but the Blue Jackets quickly turned things around with two goals of their own from Boone Jenner and Jack Roslovic to cut the lead to one. Both goals on Forsberg were scored from well out, had a bit of an odour and had the Senators sagging for a while.
But Tkachuk's extra-tricky hat trick goal at the end of the second slowed the Columbus momentum. Giroux put a shin-high pass to the front of the net that Tkachuk caught with his stick blade, pulled it to his left and flung it into the net. It looked like the puck didn't touch the ice at all.
Tkachuk now has 25 goals on the season and on pace for the first 40 goal campaign of his career.
The 5-3 lead held up through the entire third period until the Sens salted it away on an empty net goal, conservatively inserted into Columbus' net by Erik Brannstrom from the far end, offending no one.
The win gives the Senators their first four game win streak of the season.
"Everybody stepped up," Tkachuk said. "We were a man short right from the start, so we needed everybody to step up. And of course, (Forsberg) played awesome for us again, even special teams played an important role as well."
From the files of "You don't see that very often," Mark Kastelic returned to the ice almost immediately after the game, skating, shooting and puckhandling by himself as some fans were still leaving the building. Kastelic got a team-low 4:46 of ice tonight.
The Senators' next game is at home this Thursday night when they host the Anaheim Ducks.