The Senators rallied from a 2-0 deficit in the third period but fell short, losing 3-2 in Florida.
The Ottawa Senators are a hard bunch to figure out.
Last week, they lost to 30th place Anaheim and 32nd place Chicago. Then they went into Florida to face a pair of playoff teams and looked like one themselves. After the Senators won 4-2 in Tampa Bay on Monday, they put in another excellent performance tonight. This once came up short in a 3-2 overtime loss to the Florida Panthers.
Aaron Ekblad opened the scoring 19 seconds into the game on a perfect give-and-go. Ekblad passed the puck to Carter Verhaeghe in the corner, slipped past his check, then got the return feed from Verhaeghe and ripped the puck past Joonas Korpisalo.
It stayed that way until late in the second period. Shane Pinto tried to clear a loose puck from Ottawa's slot but put it right on Brandon Montour’s stick. Pinto blocked the initial shot, but it bounced right back onto Montour’s stick and he scored with a low shot on Korpisalo’s blocker side.
Down 2-0 after 40, the Sens drew even in the third on goals by Thomas Chabot and Tim Stutzle. Chabot wired home a wrist shot from the high slot to make it 2-1.
Then Stutzle went end to end, split the defence, and before he had a chance to take a shot, Florida’s Niko Mikkola knocked the puck off Stutzle’s stick and into his own net past Serge Bobrovsky.
The game was finally decided in overtime when, from a bad angle, Anton Lundell saw Korpisalo come off his post a little and roofed it on the short side with a fantastic shot to win it for the Panthers.
"Being down 2-0 going into the third I just like how we stuck together," Sens winger Drake Batherson told TSN 1200's Gord Wilson after the game. "We knew coming in that they're arguably the best team in the league right now so it was going to be a tough game. For us to come back and tie it and get the point out of it, we'll take it."
Despite the loss, it was a hell of a two-day rebound in Florida for the Sens, who now return home to face Dallas on Thursday.