The host Ottawa Senators are surging, while the Detroit Red Wings are slumping ahead of their pivotal matchup on Monday night.
The Senators, who entered Sunday leading the Eastern Conference wild-card race, have won three of their last four (3-0-1) after Saturday’s 4-3 come-from-behind home overtime win over the New York Rangers.
Meanwhile, the Red Wings have lost five in a row following Friday night’s 5-2 road defeat against the Washington Capitals, leaving them three points behind the Senators and two points out of the second wild-card spot entering Sunday.
In Ottawa’s second consecutive 4-3 overtime win, the team rallied from a 3-1 third-period deficit, with captain Brady Tkachuk’s second goal of the game 33 seconds into the extra session completing the comeback.
Tkachuk stretched his goal-scoring streak to five and has a team-leading 26 in 60 games. Tim Stutzle is first in assists (45) and points (65) in 62 games for Ottawa.
“You look at some of the chances that we missed, power-play opportunities that we didn’t capitalize on (Ottawa was 0-for-5 with the man advantage),” Tkachuk said. “Yeah, we could’ve easily let the frustration consume us, change the way we want to play and get in the way of what we’re trying to do. I think that’s just showing where our team is at right now. Frustration doesn’t matter; it’s always the next shift.”
Ridly Greig (9:44 remaining) and Michael Amadio (2:52 remaining) scored in the third period for the Senators. Linus Ullmark stopped 20 shots.
“It’s been an emotional 24 hours for not only him but the rest of our group (after trading forward Josh Norris and defenseman Jacob Bernard-Docker to Buffalo on Friday),” Ottawa coach Travis Green said. “And having a 12:30 p.m. start, I give our team a lot of credit for getting focused to play (today). The guy’s the captain of our team. He’s maturing a lot as he goes along, as well.”
Dylan Cozens, who was acquired in the deal from the Sabres, assisted on Greig’s goal.
Meanwhile, Detroit led 2-0 during the first period against Washington. After the second period, the Red Wings led 2-1, then allowed four goals in the third. Two of Washington’s goals in the third were short-handed.
“We just got to get a win, get off the schneid, find a way to win and then continue to find ways to win, not find ways to lose,” Red Wings captain Dylan Larkin said after the game. “We’re not scoring enough. We’ve got to get to the hard areas. Tonight, we didn’t shoot. We had a good start, and then we stopped shooting the puck and that cost us.”
Larkin and Moritz Seider (power-play goal) gave Detroit a 2-0 lead seven minutes into the game. Larkin netted his 26th goal of the season at the 43-second mark. Cam Talbot made 23 saves.
Friday night’s game concluded a stretch of three games in four days for the Red Wings. They lost 4-2 at home to the Utah Hockey Club on Thursday and 2-1 to the Carolina Hurricanes in Detroit on Tuesday.
“If I was going to target anything when you’re playing three games in four nights, when you get up on the man advantage, you’d better be able to at least play even,” Detroit coach Todd McLellan said.
Lucas Raymond is Detroit’s leading scorer with 65 points (22 goals, 43 assists) in 63 games, while Alex DeBrincat is the top goal scorer with 29 in 63 games.
–Field Level Media
