For the second time this season, the Ottawa Senators have lost six games in a row.
Kevin Fiala's overtime goal gave the LA Kings a 4-3 victory over the Ottawa Senators, handing the Sens their sixth straight loss, equalling a season-high.
The game was a rare matchup of two goalies who were both facing the teams they played for last season. LA launched 35 shots at Joonas Korpisalo while the Sens got 31 on Max Talbot.
Dominik Kubalik got the Sens on the board on the power play in the first period, tipping home a point shot from Jake Sanderson. It was Kubalik’s first goal since January 9th.
Unlike the night before in Anaheim, when things went pretty well for Mark Kastelic, he took a pounding during his first period in Los Angeles. First, Kastelic lost an edge and slammed hard into the Kings net, sending it all the way into the corner of the ice surface. Then he took a big hit from Matt Roy. Both collisions looked they might end Kastelic’s night, but he was right back out there for the second period.
In the second, Tim Stutzle had a completely open net to shoot at but Talbot made an incredible glove save that left Stutzle chuckling over how good it was.
Moments later, LA dumped a puck to centre ice, Quinton Byfield chipped it past Jakob Chychrun for a breakaway. With Max Guenette on his tail, Byfield managed to control a wildly bouncing puck that did everything he wanted it to and he beat Korpisalo to tie the game.
15 seconds later, Brady Tkachuk walked out from down below the goal line with Pierre-Luc Dubois on his back. Tkachuk spun back toward LA’s net and blindly whipped the puck through Talbot to restore Ottawa’s lead.
Midway through the third on a delayed penalty, the Kings had the extra man and Dubois tipped in a pass to the front of the net tie the game at 2. LA then made it it 3-2 when Stutzle perfectly redirected a shot into his own net. Jacob Moverare got credit for his first NHL goal.
In the second game of a back-to-back, the Sens began to look like perhaps the game was getting away from them, but with 4:23 left in regulation, Drake Batherson’s one timer on a great pass by Artem Zub tied the game again at 3.
But the fatigue sure looked like it was there in the overtime.
In a disastrous series, Zub gave away the puck behind his net, then instead of helping Stutzle, who was cheating on the wrong side of Fiala, Zub backed off. Stutzle battled back and finally prevented a shot from Fiala while Zub, instead of putting Fiala on his backside, reached in to poke the puck back to Fiala, who had time to spin around with a backhander. Incredibly, Zub then placed his stick blade in a perfect position for Fiala to ramp a backhander over Korpisalo.
As the Kings celebrated, Sens veteran Claude Giroux smashed his stick over the crossbar. There's no way Giroux could have imagined two years ago when he signed with his hometown team that it would be like this.
To add salt to the wound to Sens fans who stayed up past 1 am eastern, former Sens head coach D.J. Smith was positively giddy, caught by TSN's cameras smiling and laughing – maybe even outright giggling – as he accepted handshakes and walked off on the Kings' bench.
The Senators are in San Jose on Saturday to see how they measure up against the Sharks, who are tied for last place overall in the NHL.