Senators rally from down 3, defeat Predators in OT

OTTAWA -- Claude Giroux scored at 3:36 of overtime, and the Ottawa Senators rallied for a 4-3 win against the Nashville Predators at Canadian Tire Centre on Monday.

Giroux finished a give-and-go with Tim Stützle with a one-timer into the top left corner for Ottawa, which trailed 3-0 after the first period.

“In overtime, the ice is always not that great,” Giroux said, “And I didn’t think I had a great angle, so I was hoping he’d shoot it. At the same time, I knew he was going to pass it, so it definitely felt pretty good.”

Stutzle and Brady Tkachuk each had a goal and an assist, and Drake Batherson scored for the Senators (19-25-2), who are 5-2-2 after a five-game losing streak.

“We showed our maturity from all the lessons that we’ve learned,” said Tkachuk, the Ottawa captain. “In the past, it could’ve gotten away from us, but we stuck to it, stuck to our game and really emphasized doing it as a team versus trying to do it individually.”

Joonas Korpisalo made 17 saves in relief of Mads Sogaard, who allowed three goals on 11 shots and was pulled after the first period.

“I didn’t want to wait because I think that we needed a bit of a shock,” Senators coach Jacques Martin said of pulling Sogaard. “Like, maybe to wake up the rest of the guys. So, we changed our goalies, changed our lines and kind of started from fresh and really tried to put some more pressure. I think our [defensemen] pinched more, and I thought we had more sustained pressure and were able to capitalize.

“Our goaltending made some big saves too. [Korpisalo] made some key saves when we made a couple of mistakes. I thought it was a great team effort.”

Philip Tomasino had a goal and an assist, Michael McCarron and Yakov Trenin scored, and Juuse Saros made 31 saves for the Predators (26-22-2), who have lost four of their past five games (1-3-1).

“They wanted it a little bit more in the second period. I thought fatigue set in [for us],” Nashville coach Andrew Brunette said. “We’ve gone on a bit of a stretch here and our legs weren’t quite there, and then our brains shut off in a few situations, face-offs, gave up two face-off goals, kind of easy offense. But we showed a little bit of grit down the stretch where we know we didn’t have our game, but [we] found a way to get a point.”

McCarron gave the Predators a 1-0 lead at 8:26 of the first period. Roman Josi’s dump-in took an odd bounce off a stanchion behind the net and popped out into the slot, where McCarron one-timed it past Sogaard.

Tomasino skated around Senators defenseman Thomas Chabot and drove to the net, chipping the puck over Sogaard’s glove to make it 2-0 at 16:30.

“I think there’s a lot we can learn from tonight, especially how to close out games,” Tomasino said. “I think, going forward, we can’t keep letting this happen.”

Trenin tipped a Dante Fabbro point shot to make it 3-0 at 19:00. It was his first goal in 17 games.

“In this league, when you’re up 3-0 and even when you’re down 3-0, you know the team that’s down is going to come out hard, it’s going to make a push," said Josi, the Predators captain. Nobody’s happy going into the first intermission down 3-0, so we knew they were going to make a push and we just have to be better than that.”

Ottawa outshot Nashville 28-17 after the first period.

“Parker Kelly was in there chatting, the leaders and stuff like that,” Batherson said of the discussion in the first intermission. “‘Kells’ made a good speech and got the boys fired up. You love to see it.”

Giroux said, “I don’t remember the words, but Parker is a guy that works extremely hard and when he talks he’s well respected in the locker room. But you know what, you can see that other guys, too, are kind of being a little bit more vocal and that’s what you need. It can’t be the same guys all the time.”

Batherson took a cross-crease pass from Tkachuk, outwaited Saros and tucked the puck around the goaltender’s left pad to cut it to 3-1 at 5:21 of the second period.

“I think we were pretty frustrated after getting smoked last game (7-2 against the New York Rangers on Saturday) and coming out in the first and being down 3-zip,” Batherson said. “Had to do something.”

Stutzle took a centering pass from Mathieu Joseph on the rush and beat Saros glove side with a wrist shot to cut it to 3-2 at 9:20.

“I think they just outplayed, outworked us; they were just the better team,” Josi said. “In the second we kind of got what we deserved. For some reason we didn’t play our game in the second.”

Tkachuk won a puck battle off the face-off, turned and beat Saros with a snap shot high blocker to tie it 3-3 at 17:10.

“I don’t know how the other guys felt, but after the first, I knew we were coming back,” Stutzle said. “Just the way we were talking in the room, just everybody stood up in the room and said ‘Hey guys, we’ve just got to do a better job and help our goalies out.’”

NOTES: Giroux scored his fifth career game-winning goal in which his team trailed by three or more goals, tied with Glenn Anderson for the most in NHL history. The only others were at least four are Vincent Damphousse and Alex Kovalev. ... It was Ottawa's first three-goal comeback victory since Feb. 15, 2021, a 6-5 overtime win against the Toronto Maple Leafs. It was also the first time since March 5, 2022 (at the Arizona Coyotes), that the Senators at least tied the score in a game after trailing by three or more goals. ... With his 57th multipoint game, Stutzle passed Martin Havlat for the most in Senators history before age 23. … Tkachuk had a game-high eight shots. ... Predators forward Gustav Nyquist was minus-3 in 19:10 of ice time.