Senators fall in Big Apple

The Ottawa Senators couldn't find the back of the net in a loss to the Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Monday night.

“I thought it was a pretty close game, but the unfortunate part is we gave them the first two goals,” said interim head coach Jacques Martin. “But what I think is more significant is we stayed with it, and I thought we got stronger as the game went on."We talked about it this morning, we talked about puck management. The first goal a turnover and the second goal was a short-handed goal.

"You take those two goals away and we have close game."

The Rangers opened the scoring in the first period when Jack Roslovic fired a Chris Kreider pass behind Joonas Korpisalo who stopped 30-34 shots he faced tonight.

Ottawa managed to get 10 shots on goal in the first period but it wasn't enough to put one past Igor Shesterkin who stopped all 26 Senators shots.

"[Shesterkin] was at his best, he is an excellent goaltender and they have got a good team obviously," added Jacques Martin. "When you play these good teams you just can't afford to give them freebies."

The second period saw both teams exchange power plays, but on the Senators turn Adam Fox scored a goal with Kreider picking up his second assist of the game.

"We gave them a lot of good chances, obviously a few odd man rushes there and a team like that they are going to make it count and score on you on those," said Drake Batherson. "Their D were blocking lots of shots there tonight, but that's a goalie that's one of the best in the world and sometimes it's like that and sometimes they go in."

The Senators had a few more scoring chances late in the second period, but the game entered the third with the Rangers holding a 2-0 lead.

Less than five minutes into the final period. Artemi Panarin scored his 49th of the season and with exactly seven minutes remaining Alexis Lafrenière scored the 4th goal of the game.

"They play the right way, they play hard, they've got skill, they've got depth so when you look over there it should fire you up to play them but we didn't have enough fire tonight," explained Jake Sanderson on facing off against a President's Trophy winning club in the Rangers.

The Senators will head to Boston tonight and close out the season against the Bruins tomorrow night.

"Last game tomorrow, the season hasn't gone the way you want it to, but there are three more periods so we have got to lay it all out there," added Sanderson.

Catch tomorrow's game on TSN5 and RDS2 at 7 p.m. from TD Garden.