Ennis scores hat trick, Senators blank Sabres

OTTAWA --Tyler Ennis scored a hat trick, and Matt Murray got his first shutout of the season for the Ottawa Senators in a 5-0 win against the Buffalo Sabres at Canadian Tire Centre on Tuesday.

"We're playing some good hockey right now and we're growing as a team," Ennis said. "Personally, obviously it feels good to put the puck in the net. It's been tough for me this year to score, so getting three felt pretty good."
It was Ennis' second NHL hat trick and his first since March 4, 2019, against the Calgary Flames. He hadn't scored in 30 games since the season opener against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Oct. 14.
"He had great legs since he's sat a couple [games] in a row," Ottawa coach D.J. Smith said of Ennis, 32. "Sometimes you just need to refresh mentally, a reset. It's like you're starting the year over. I mean, he scored the first game of the year and it starts weighing on you. He sits a couple out, gets away from it a little bit, and he comes back and now here he is. Now all of a sudden he looks like he's 20-year-old again."

Adam Gaudette had two assists for the Senators (13-20-3), who have a three-game point streak (2-0-1). Murray made 32 saves and is 3-0-1 in his past four starts after beginning the season 0-6-0. He was recalled from Belleville of the American Hockey League on Dec. 28 after being assigned there one month earlier, one day after he was placed on waivers.
"He made some huge saves in the third (period)," Smith said of Murray. "Some bad penalties by us, some ticky-tack penalties that I didn't like. But he made some great saves on some failed clears. We gave him some chances that we shouldn't have given up.
"He looks as good as he's looked since he's been here."
Aaron Dell made 42 saves for the Sabres (13-22-7), who were 0-for-5 on the power play.
"I think consistency is probably the biggest thing in this league," Buffalo forward Casey Mittelstadt said. "If your team can learn to play night in and night out, you'll give yourself a chance to win every night and a lot of the time you're going to win a lot of games. We're a young group and we're learning, but eventually the page has to turn and we've got to do better."
Ennis gave the Senators a 1-0 lead at 15:53 of the first period. Gaudette pulled the puck back between his legs to get around Sabres defenseman Robert Hagg, and passed across to Ennis for the tap-in.
Drake Batherson made it 2-0 on the power play at 17:11. He was the last Ottawa player to touch the puck before Buffalo defenseman Mattias Samuelsson batted the puck into his own net.

Batherson tied an NHL career high with his 34th point of the season (14 goals, 21 assists) but left the game later in the period with an ankle injury after crashing into the end boards on a hit by Dell. Smith said the timeline for Batherson's injury was unknown but that the forward will miss the 2022 Honda NHL All-Star Game on Feb. 5 in Las Vegas. It would have been his first appearance in an All-Star Game.
"I was just trying to buy some time for my defenseman and step into [Batherson's] lane," Dell said. "I hope he's all right. I wasn't trying to hurt anybody."
Batherson had to be helped off the ice.
"It's a bad play by the goalie," Smith said.
Ennis scored on a cross-crease pass from Chris Tierney to make it 3-0 at 18:48.
"You sit here after the fact and you say, 'Yeah, it could've been the other way after the first 10 minutes,'" Sabres coach Don Granato said. "But the way we did not respond after that is an indicator, to me, that we didn't have a strong enough foundation going into the game. So there is no feeling good about anything. We had very little response, the way we wanted, after we fell behind."
Alex Formenton finished a give-and-go with Tim Stutzle on a 2-on-1 to make it 4-0 at 11:15 of the second period.
Ennis completed the hat trick with a wrist shot from the top of the slot with 30 seconds remaining in the third period for the 5-0 final.
NOTES: Mittelstadt played 16:52 in his return after missing 16 games because of surgery for an upper-body injury Dec. 10. … Sabres defenseman Zemgus Girgensons returned after missing five games with a lower-body injury and had four shots in 11:25. … Ottawa forward Dylan Gambrell left early in the first with an upper-body injury. Smith said he'll be out for about a week. … Ennis sat out a 6-4 loss at the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday and a 3-2 overtime loss at the Washington Capitals on Saturday.