Maple Leafs lose to Senators, fail to keep pace in Atlantic race

OTTAWA --The Toronto Maple Leafs lost ground in the Atlantic Division race when they were defeated 6-2 by the Ottawa Senators at Canadian Tire Centre on Saturday.

Morgan Rielly and John Tavares scored, and Sparks made 38 saves for Toronto (43-24-5), which fell four points behind the Boston Bruins for second place in the division.
"We need more emotion," Sparks said. "I'm an emotional player; I need more emotion. We need more emotion from everybody. We need people to get angry. We need people to step up and be mad and take it personally."
WATCH: [All Maple Leafs vs. Senators highlights]
The Maple Leafs have allowed at least five goals in each of their past four games; the one win in that stretch was when they rallied for a 7-6 victory against the Philadelphia Flyers on Friday.
"[Defense] has to be of the utmost importance for us," said Tavares, who scored his 40th goal of the season. "We're not going to have success if we're giving up the amount of goals we're giving up.
"It probably feels that one little bounce or one mistake is proving very costly, but that's the way it's going right now, and that's the way this time of year gets. Everything gets very tight and the margin for error is very small, and that's no matter who you're playing against."

Magnus Paajarvi scored twice, Zack Smith had three assists and Anders Nilsson made 35 saves for Ottawa (25-41-6), which has been eliminated from Stanley Cup Playoff contention.
"That was, quite truthfully, probably our best game of the year," Senators coach Marc Crawford said. "If you look at all the things that went in our favor, right from the goaltending to the defense, how well a lot of them skated tonight, how well they hit, how well they finished checks, moved the puck. We had four lines that all played good."
Cody Ceci scored with a wrist shot from the slot to give the Senators a 1-0 lead at 6:36 of the first period.
Brian Gibbons swung his stick at a loose puck while falling to the ice, and it trickled under Sparks' pads to make it 2-0 at 6:48 of the second period.
Rielly scored his 20th goal of the season with a wrist shot from the right face-off circle to make it 2-1 at 12:33.
Paajarvi took a cross-ice pass from Rudolfs Balcers and scored with a snap shot to the top left corner to give the Senators a 3-1 lead at 13:51. Paajarvi scored his second of the game with a wrist shot to make it 4-1 at 18:50.
"We wanted to counter on them," Paajarvi said. "We know they're a really, really good counter team, a lot of fire power. We [don't] necessarily have that much right now, so we've got to stick together and play together and be solid."
Tavares scored on a 5-on-3 power play to make it 4-2 at 5:13 of the third period. It's the first time Tavares has scored 40 goals in a season, and it was also his 700th NHL career point.
"It's really hard to really feel good about something like that now, considering the way tonight went," Tavares said. "It's obviously nice, and it's a credit to my teammates and the team I'm playing on."
Anthony Duclair gave the Senators a 5-2 lead at 8:36, and Oscar Lindberg scored at 14:21 for the 6-2 final.
"We've given up way too many goals," Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock said. "You can't take the puck out of your net like we have and have success.
"The bottom line is we all know how to play defense, we all know where to stand and we're not doing a good enough job, and tonight we weren't good enough."

They said it

"[This week has] been challenging. Me and [Frederik Andersen] both have been trying to make saves for this team; that's all we ever try to do. We know we're missing some guys (defensemen Jake Gardiner and Travis Dermott, and forward Kasperi Kapanen), but we also have some pretty good players in the lineup in their place, so we're not going to use that as an excuse. We can always be better." -- Maple Leafs goalie Garret Sparks
"It's always fun beating Toronto, whatever the scenario is, wherever each team sits in the standings. It's always a good matchup." -- Senators forward Zack Smith

Need to know

With the secondary assist on Ceci's goal, Senators forward Max Veronneau got his first NHL point. … Tavares became the third player to score 40 goals in his first season with the Maple Leafs (Eddie Olczyk, 42, 1987-88, Auston Matthews, 40, 2016-17). … Matthews had a game-high nine shots on goal.

What's next

Maple Leafs: At the Nashville Predators on Tuesday (8 p.m. ET; FS-TN, TSN4, NHL.TV)
Senators: At the Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday (10 p.m. ET; SNP, TSN5, RDS, NHL.TV)