Despite losing three of their last four games, the Sens are still holding down the final wild-card spot with six games left to play.
The Ottawa Senators are going cold at exactly the wrong time. On Saturday afternoon, they lost for the fourth time in five games (1-3-1), falling 4-1 to the Minnesota Wild at Canadian Tire Centre.
The good news is that the teams around them in the wild card race, Columbus, Detroit, and the Islanders, all lost in regulation as well. So the Sens are still holding down the final wild-card spot with six games left to play.
The other bit of good news was the return of Jake Sanderson, who missed 13 games with a shoulder injury.
But that's where the silver-lining playbook ends.
The Sens didn't seem overly inspired by their top defenseman's return on Saturday, and also learned that Tyler Kleven would be out indefinitely after being struck by a puck on the side of his head in Thursday's win over Buffalo.
Minnesota goaltender Jesper Wallstedt made 33 saves, but probably deserved a shutout. The Sens had some looks, but many of their 33 shots were from the perimeter or with no one at the net. Drake Batherson scored with under four minutes left in the game, chipping a puck into the net while lying on the ice.
It's the second time in three games that Batherson has been a shutout buster. He scored Tuesday in Florida, where the Sens were down 5-0. And on a day when the Sens' good news seemed to be rolled up with bad news, Batherson's goal was no different. He was struck by a shot on the play and headed down the tunnel afterward.
As for Minnesota, they jumped out to a 2-0 first-period lead on some good fortune.
Skating down the left wing midway through the first, Jonas Brodin drifted a light wrist shot on net, which Linus Ullmark normally would have steered out of harm's way. But it took a funny skip off the ice, then off Ullmark, straight into traffic, off Nikolas Matinpalo’s skate and into the net.
The next goal was more of a gift. Jordan Spence coughed it up at the offensive blue line for a 2-on-0 that was finished off by Ryan Hartman for a 2-0 Minnesota lead. Hartman is the guy who was suspended for eight games last year for slamming Tim Stutzle's face off the ice, showing a brutal misunderstanding of what a face-off means.
On Saturday, metaphorically at least, Hartman did that to the Senators again, scoring twice to lead the charge.
After the game, head coach Travis Green talked about the loss and took issue with a reporter describing the team as having a lack of urgency.
"When you ask if we played with enough urgency, I think it feels like you are asking if we tried hard enough," Green said. “That’s just easy to say when you lose. Our guys want to win. They want to win bad. Some guys didn’t have the best game, and that would have gone a long way for us to win.”
Green said there were three or four players in particular who didn't play well, but obviously didn't identify them. That's absolutely not his style, nor does he like to gush too long over individual players who have great games.
Despite the flat performance, the Senators, along with the Red Wings, Blue Jackets, and Flyers, will begin another day on Sunday, tied at 88 points. Ottawa will have the tiebreaker with a substantial lead in regulation wins.
The Sens will host the Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday at 5 pm in a battle of two teams on short rest. The 'Canes were busy doing Ottawa a huge favour on Saturday night with a 4-3 regulation victory over the Islanders.
Steve Warne
The Hockey News
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