Nikita Kucherov extended his season-opening goal streak to four games, Anthony Cirelli had two assists and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 23 saves for the Lightning (3-1-0), who won their first three this season.
Ottawa was 2-for-5 on the power play; Tampa Bay was 0-for-3 and allowed a short-handed goal.
“It comes down to special teams tonight,” Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh said. “We’ve been pretty solid the first few games, in that aspect, and tonight it was just the opposite, for whatever reason. Poor execution.
“Our heart and our effort is in the right place, and that still gave us a chance keeping it close there. But obviously, we want to sharpen those areas. We take a lot of pride in being a really good team in special teams, and tonight just got away from us.”
Batherson gave the Senators a 1-0 lead at 1:50 of the first period when he one-timed Giroux’s pass into the top left corner during a 5-on-3 power play.
“I always joke about it with [Giroux]; he was one of my favorite players growing up,” Batherson, 26 said of his 36-year-old teammate. “So, I said I was excited to play with him today and it was nice to connect on a few of them.”
A tripping penalty against Cirelli and a delay-of-game penalty to J.J. Moser for shooting the puck over the glass led to Tampa Bay being two men down.
“Well, that’s tough. That’s pretty much the difference in the game,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “It’s unfortunate that we throw a puck out of play, we didn’t mean to, it’s probably a tough part of the rule. But it’s the rule, so we’re kind of chasing it the whole game.”
Josh Norris took a cross-slot pass from Giroux and beat Vasilevskiy with a wrist shot glove side to make it 2-0 at 13:21.
Kucherov one-timed a cross-ice pass from McDonagh to cut it to 2-1 at 1:59 of the second period.
Nicholas Paul one-timed a drop pass from Cirelli in the slot to tie it 2-2 at 10:39.
“I think the biggest thing is we just hurt ourselves with penalties,” Paul said. “It starts off in the first and then a couple bad ones, including myself. It’s hard to get the momentum going when you’re in the box and you’re down, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.
“We’ve got to learn from it and be disciplined. There’s a way of playing hard and a way of playing dumb.”
Batherson responded to make it 3-2 at 13:20. He intercepted a Darren Raddysh pass attempt, skated in on a partial break and slid the puck past the outstretched glove of Vasilevskiy.
Jake Guentzel’s shot from a sharp angle squeaked past Forsberg to tie it 3-3 at 18:13. It was his first goal with Tampa Bay after signing a seven-year, $63 million contract ($9 million average annual value) July 1.
Tkachuk put the Senators back in front at 18:56 when he scored on a Sanderson rebound at the edge of the crease on the power play to make it 4-3.
