Recap: Ottawa Senators fall to Washington Capitals

The Senators couldn't keep pace with the Washington Capitals in a high-scoring affair on Monday night. The battle of nation's capitals saw Washington double up Ottawa 6-3 following several quick goals from both sides.

"I think we were just a little flat tonight and we had a tough start put us behind the eight ball, no excuses, " explained Senators forward Shane Pinto. "We just have to play better and start better."

This sentiment was echoed by interim head coach Jacques Martin.

"We've got to continue to learn from this game. We'll review it tomorrow, there's things we need to be better at and move on," Martin added on taking lessons from tonight into the next game. " We play tomorrow night so we need to get back on the horse and be ready to compete."

Martin also pointed to several mistakes across the entire game that cost the Senators tonight.

"It was more mistakes that we made," he went on. "I think we had three penalties and they scored on two out of the three and that hurt us."

It wasn't all negatives for the Senators. Brady Tkachuk and Shane Pinto each had a goal and two assists for the Senators and Joonas Korpisalo stopped eight of 10 shots over the final two periods including a handful of high-quality chances.

The offense started early in this one when a broken play in the Washington zone created a two-on-one and Anthony Mantha hit Aliaksei Protas who opened the scoring with 13:30 left in the first period.

Exactly two minutes later with Jakob Chychrun in the penalty box for delay of game John Carlson scored to double the Capitals lead.

Ottawa immediately turned the pressure back on the Capitals doubling their shot total in just three minutes, capping off with their first goal of the game.

Senators captain Brady Tkachuk crashed the Washington zone forcing a melee behind the Washington net. The puck popped out finding Drake Batherson’s stick and he waited patiently before lifting the puck over Darcy Kuemper for the Sens first goal of the game.

With the pressure still on, the Senators knotted the game at two when Shane Pinto tipped a Travis Hamonic point shot past Kuemper. Initially ruled no goal the call was reversed upon a second look.

The pendulum immediately swung back to the home team when the Capitals found themselves on the power play after a questionable call on Batherson. After Max Pacioretty scored the Capitals second goal of the game with the man advantage Beck Malenstyn doubled the lead just 14 seconds later.

The second period started up with Joonas Korpisalo replacing Anton Forsberg in net.

The move seemed to jumpstart Ottawa. The Senators kicked off the period with a long cycle that put Washington on their heels. Shortly after the pressure, Brady Tkachuk took a perfect pass from Vladimir Tarasenko and fired it between Kuemper’s pads to cut the lead to one.

The quick goals didn’t stop there as Washington extended their lead to two when Hendrix Lapierre scored just 21 seconds later.

Ottawa got their first power play with 12:26 remaining in the second period. The Senators zone time was more than a minute and thirty seconds on the power play, but their best chance saw Tarasenko stopped in close.

As the period wound down Lapierre was the second man on another Washington two-on-one and finished the play putting the puck past a sprawling Korpisalo.

The third period saw similar conservative play, but without the quality chances for the limited shots on net. Neither team was keen to draw a penalty and this showed.

One of the best chances of the period started with a Mathieu Joseph interception just inside the Washington blueline. He pulled the puck from his backhand to his forehand outwaiting a diving defender narrowly missing a wide open Tim Stützle to the left of Kuemper.

With 10:26 remaining Joseph muscled his way to the slot and got a sizzling shot away, but it was gloved down by Kuemper.

Korpisalo did his best to give the Senators a chance at a late comeback. With 7:27 remaining he made an important pad save on Rasmus Sandin who glided toward the net untouched.

The Ottawa netminder did it again when he stopped Tom Wilson on a breakaway with just four minutes remaining in the game.

As the final buzzer went the Senators fell to 8-15-1 on the road for the season.

Hear from the Senators players following the loss.

The Senators get a chance to jump right back into the win column tomorrow when they head into Nashville. 

"You don't want to forget about the game but you've got to learn from it," explained Jake Sanderson on turning the page. "We've got a great task again tomorrow."