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    • Five insights into a much-needed Senators victory over the Bruins
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    Five insights into a much-needed Senators victory over the Bruins

    Vaseline Posted on

    There was some palpable fear among Senators fans this past week. Two games against the Buffalo Sabers and New York Islanders came on the heels of three straight games in which the Senators felt they were playing at their best. Head coach Travis Green kept Travis Hamonic in the lineup at the expense of younger Jacob Bernard-Docker on the third pairing, an unpopular decision among factions of Senators on to lead.

    But thanks to Saturday’s overtime victory, fans may be able to breathe a little easier. At least for a weekend.

    Brady Tkachuk’s overtime winner — a franchise-record eighth in his young career — got the Senators back to .500 and helped ease some concerns in November with a 3-2 victory over the Atlantic Division rival Boston Bruins.

    “I think the last two games for myself, individually, I didn’t like the way I played with the puck,” Tkachuk said. “It’s just something I want to focus on.

    “I feel pretty confident that every time I have the puck on my stick, it has a chance to go in. So I have to use it more. Today it felt like the puck was coming to me in the offensive zone. Every time I had it I just wanted to take pictures. Maybe create some chaos. But I also trust that my shot had a chance to go in.

    The win puts the Senators at 7-7-0, the exact record they had last season. Like the 2023-24 Senators, this year’s team won their 14th game of the NHL season in overtime.

    Here are five lessons from the seventh win:

    Before we analyze his performance, let’s take a closer look at Ullmark’s statements on Friday morning that had some fans worried. For context, he was asked where he thought his game was.

    “That’s a good question because I don’t know,” Ullmark said. “I don’t know if it’s in a good place or a bad place. All I know is that it will be exciting for me to go in there tomorrow and compete with my heart and soul and try to get the best out of it. Enjoy it. Try to take it all in. Because eventually the sun will rise tomorrow. It will be a new hockey game and the game will be played in Boston and I am happy about that.”

    Ullmark answered the question with as much zen as he could muster. But that first part of the quote will get people’s attention as his season had some ups and downs ranging from injuries to some inconsistency.

    The spotlight found Ullmark on Saturday night, where he played his first game in Boston since being traded in the offseason. Ullmark even exchanged one last hug with former batterymate Jeremy Swayman during pre-game warmups and said he felt “goosebumps” when he stepped back onto the TD Garden ice. The Bruins even gave him a standing ovation halfway through the first period.

    “It was a lot of fun,” Ullmark said. “It’s something I look back on and will take with me forever, so to speak.”

    Ullmark didn’t have to be extraordinary against the Bruins and left the ice with a modest performance of 14 saves. But his best save came in overtime on the first shot he faced since Mark Kastelic last tested him at 13:13 of the second period.

    “We don’t get the two points if it isn’t for Ullmark’s save in overtime,” Tkachuk said. “What a save at the right time.”

    So where is Ullmark’s game now, after a game like Saturday night?

    “I still don’t know where it is,” Ullmark said. ‘It’s good enough. That’s what it is now. That’s how it goes in this competition. You have to play well enough and make enough saves for your team to win.”

    The Senators’ power play

    Ottawa continues to generate goals on its power play, going 1-for-3 against the Bruins. Their only goal was the result of great work from the Senators’ best power play unit.

    Their speed in entering the zone was not easy for the Bruins to handle and once the Sens positioned themselves in the offensive zone, they won a key board battle to maintain possession in the corner of the ice. As Tkachuk maneuvered around, Josh Norris was wide open, waiting for the chance to bury the puck past Swayman. The Senators essentially caught the Bruins napping with a less-than-ideal defensive structure.

    Charlie Coyle is the player closest to Tkachuk and he doesn’t stop the puck from leaving Tkachuk’s stick. Nikita Zadorov is the defender at Swayman’s right post and although he tries to cut off a passing lane, he too is beaten. Brad Marchand finds himself in a strange no man’s land. He initially ventures towards Tim Stützle on the wall.

    But as the screenshot below shows, he realizes a little too late that it would be better to be in a better position to cut off the pass. He could at least go to Norris. Finally, a fourth Bruin is below the goal line, covering Drake Batherson, who is not hurting anyone from far behind the net. The recipe was there for Tkachuk to find Norris and for the Sens to score a goal.

    A zero-shot third period

    At the end of the week, when the Sens’ defensive positioning was subject to criticism, it is difficult to fault the way the Sens kept the Bruins from getting a shot on goal for more than a third of the competition. Boston rarely threatened offensively in the third period and the Senators deserve credit for keeping their shooters at bay even if their offense didn’t return the favor by adding more goals when they had the chance.

    The Bruins’ Corsi For percentage was a paltry 18.52 percent at five-on-five in the third period and their expected goals were 0.1, according to Natural Stat Trick. Boston failed to record a shot in the final 24-plus minutes of the game and only managed one shot on goal in overtime before Tkachuk scored the winning goal from the other end.

    “That was our emphasis in the third period. We have to play winning hockey and build a foundation for what we want to achieve,” Tkachuk said. “I think that’s proof that we played a really good third period.”

    “You don’t see that often,” coach Green said. “It’s a good team. We were working on our game in the third and it was a big step in the right direction.”

    Clearing the area

    The Senators played a good game overall on Saturday. But conceding two goals in fifteen seconds almost set the table for the game to get away from it. Both goals could have been prevented had the Senators moved the puck out of their zone. Zack MacEwen was late with a puck swipe at the blue line, which led to the Bruins maintaining their offensive zone pressure and Pavel Zacha gaining the upper hand over Nick Jensen before beating Ullmark.

    Seconds later, the Bruins took advantage of a bad shift from the Jake Sanderson-Artem Zub combination. Zub, playing only his second game back from injury, failed to clear the zone after sending the puck off the wall. Sanderson did his best to maintain positioning as the Bruins carried the puck along the goal line, but was ultimately spun around and failed to catch Brad Marchand, who was parked to the side of the net.

    Mistakes happen, but it feels like the Sens defense has had these mental mistakes a little more than it should.

    Should the Senators make a move for Dante Fabbro?

    The Nashville Predators placed the 26-year-old defenseman on waivers on Saturday afternoon. Through six games this season, he has no points. Fabbro was a consistent presence in defense alongside Roman Josi. But now it appears he could use a change of scenery after spending parts of seven seasons with the Preds.

    In theory, it makes sense for the Senators to show interest in the impending unrestricted free agent considering the team needs as much depth on defense as possible. The fact that Fabbro is a good player is also a plus on his resume. Fabbro can also be used as a penalty killer. But he has shown limited attacking qualities throughout his career, even when playing alongside Josi. Fabbro’s cap hit is also cause for concern, as his $2.5 million salary would not currently fit into the Sens’ cap structure. (PuckPedia has Ottawa with $389,616 in cap space). The salary cap hit alone would make me wonder if the Sens would even think a move to Fabbro would be worth it. It certainly couldn’t happen without the Sens being creative in some way.

    (Top photo of Brady Tkachuk, Michael Amadio and Travis Hamonic: Winslow Townson/Getty Images)

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