Recap: Ottawa Senators can't get by the Nashville Predators

The Senators couldn't get back on track on Tuesday night falling to the Nashville Predators 4-1 after the loss to Washinton the night before. 

Drake Batherson scored his 20th of the season for Ottawa's lone goal. Roman Josi had two goals with an assist for the Predators and Juuse Saros made 24 saves. Five of his saves were against Senators captain Brady Tkachuk and six were against Shane Pinto. 

Ottawa was able to generate a lot of offensive chances in the middle portion of the game, at one point rattling off 12 straight shots, but another slow start stalled their effort and the team was held shotless in the third period for first time in franchise history.

"I thought we battled hard in the second period and I thought we had some great chances," explained head coach Jacques Martin. "In the second period if we could have go the tying goal instead of giving them the third goal it would have given us some life in the third."

In addition to the loss on thei Ice Tkahcuk spoke about losing centre Josh Norris in the second period. 

"What happened with Josh I'm hoping and praying it's not too bad," he said. "Unfortunatly its a part of the game and of course he is such a big part of our team on the ice, off the ice and in the room. We wanted to win it for him tonight, but unfortunatly we couldn't."

The Predators came out of the gate strong with the first four shots on goal. The fifth shot came 3:23 into the game off of the stick of Michael McCarron for the first goal of the game. The shot came from the top of the right face-off circle through a Cole Smith screen handcuffing Joonas Korpisalo.

The Senators tried to mount a comeback, but off a turnover at their own blueline Jakob Chychrun pulled down Cody Glass for the first penalty on the game. On the ensuing power play Roman Josi put a slapshot behind the Ottawa netminder to extend the Nashville lead to two goals.

With 11 minutes remaining in the period Mark Kastelic attempted to give the Senators a spark by fighting McCarron and for a while it seemed to work as Ottawa pushed the pace with 12 straight shots.

A great chance came as Chycrun carried the puck into the Predators' zone and fired a rocket off Saros' left pad and the rebound sat in the Nashville crease just out of reach of the Senators forwards.

With just over two minutes remaining in the first period Claude Giroux made a near-perfect saucer pass to Tim Stützle. The play was broken up by Saros but also resulted in a Nashville penalty.

The Senators first power play of the game held the zone for most of the man advantage until Drake Batherson finished a Jake Sanderson one-timer to cut the lead to one.

The Senators continued their surge to start the second period. In the first five minutes Shane Pinto led the way on a three on one and elected to shoot. The shot was stopped by Saros and the rebound bounced over Tkachuk’s stick.

The next time Pinto was on the ice he split the defense and got the shot off on Saros but both the initial chance and the rebound were turned aside.

Later in the period while attempting to defend Cole Smith behind the Ottawa net Josh Norris was pushed awkwardly into the back of the Senators net and left the game with an upper body injury.

While the Senators outshot the Predators 25-17 in the first two periods it was Nashville who would strike again with under two minutes to play in the second period. Josi would score his second goal of the game after taking advantage of a defensive breakdown in their own end and skating the puck to the crease before putting it just under the crossbar to beat Korpisalo.

The third period was a challenge for Ottawa. The Senators failed to get a shot on goal and were stymied time and time again, by an aggressive Nashville backcheck.

While the offense couldn't get going Korpisalo make several strong saves. The first save to keep the Senators within two goals came on a shot from the slot by Novak that Korpisalo got a piece of but as it trickled behind him Erik Brännström tucked it safely underneath the Senators goalie.

The second shot came off Cole Smith who has a great look to the left of Korpisalo when the Nashville winger found himself alone just feet from the Ottawa goal, but he couldn't get it past the goaltender's glove.

However, this came after Nashville had already scored their fourth goal of the game. Gustov Nyquist finished off an odd bounce into his feet for his first goal of the game with seven minutes remaining in the third period.