Post-game Recap: Senators defeat Canadiens

The Senators battled the Montreal at the Bell Centre on Tuesday night and came away with another resounding victory.

It was the second time in the past five nights that these division rivals faced-off and the second time the Senators scored four or more goals.

The Senators opened the scoring early with a patient short-handed marker from Ridly Grieg at 7:45 of the first period. After a quick face-off win by Josh Norris, Greig reached around the Montreal goalkeeper to bury the rebound off Erik Brannstrom’s one-timer from the point.

Only a few moments later Jake Sanderson carried the puck across the Montreal blueline and fired a shot toward the net that narrowly missed, only to be held in at the line by Zub. Zub passed the puck back to Sanderson who put the puck off the post and in to give the Sens a two-goal lead.

Montreal had two odd-man opportunties in the final five minutes of the first period, but on seperate occasions both Brendan Gallagher and Juraj Slafkovsky were unable to get a shot off to test Joonas Korpisalo and the period ended with Ottawa leading shots 11-6.

The second period opened with each team trading scoring chances early, but the score remained the same with each team's goaltender making big saves.

From there Ottawa was forced to kill off a pair of consecutive penalties including an odd call where Vladimiar Tarasenko used his stick to flip Brady Tkachuk his own stick back to him. On that kill Korpisalo turned away a point blank chance Cole Caufield just before the puck was cleared and Mathieu Joseph was pulled down ending the Montreal power play.

As the Montreal pendalty expired Claude Giroux hit Shane Pinto with a pin-point pass from the Senators' own end. Pinto collected the pass, somewhow staying on-side, to break in all alone before firing a shot stick side for his first of the season.

Before the period ended Montreal had two more power play chances but came up empty both times and the frame ended with Montreal managing 10 shots to Ottawa's 8, but the Sens taking a three goal lead into the third.

The third period started off with each team feeling the other out and only one shot on next through the frist thre minutes. The game grew more physical and just as it started to open up Montreal's Arber Xhekaj got called for interference six minutes into the frame. Ottawa struggled to get set up on that power play and just a minute and a half later another Montreal penalty gave the Sens a five on three power play for 28 seconds.

Ottawa mustered a few scoring chances but Jake Allen was able to keep Montreal's deficit to three goals.

With 7:29 left to play Montreal's Johnathan Kovacevic was able to get a wrist shot past a screened Korpisalo to make the game 3-1. 

Despite pulling the goaltender with just over three minutes left to play Montreal couldn't create any major offensive chances before Mathieu Joseph was able to steal a pass and put home the empty netter to give Ottawa its 8th straigh win against Montreal.

Three Takeaways

1. Nine different Senators players registered a single point in tonight's game with no multipoint players. 
2. Thomas Chabot was a +2 on the night and logged 25:02 of ice time in the Senators win.
3. The Senators have won 8 straight against the Montreal Canadiens and have outscored their division rivals 40-18 during that timeframe.

Photo of the Night