The Senators put on a dominant display on offense against an exhausted Blues lineup
Star Wars Day at the Canadian Tire Center. A battle between the forces of good and Jordan Binnington.
The St. Louis Blues arrived in Ottawa without Vladimir Tarasenko, Ryan O’Reilly and Noel Acciari as they began to strip away their championship core. It was a good chance for the Senators to bounce back at home after a disappointing overtime loss to the NHL’s worst-performing Chicago Blackhawks on Friday.
The Ottawa Senators started a bit slow out of goal, and the Blues’ four shots on an early power play made it look like they might take the lead. However, Austin Watson was the one who created the best chances in those two minutes thanks to a deft puck handling from Tim Stützle going into the offensive zone. He had a partial break in front of Thomas Greiss, but he couldn’t get the puck past him.
Ottawa would get their next two power plays of the period, despite failing to properly prepare for the first and Greiss on the second. Those power plays seemed to change the momentum in the second half of the period, however, as Shane Pinto was the first player to hit the board. Drake Batherson ran a ridiculous saucer pass across the ice and Pinto somehow put it in on the other side with a half volley. It was an incredible amount of skill from both players:
the last minutes nearly went off the rails when Tim Stützle took a penalty when he hit Colton Parayko from behind. It wasn’t as vicious, though he jumped and Parayko even cut his lip, prompting referees to review the play for a potential 5-minute major. Luckily it was only a 2 minute minor and they were able to kill it. After 20 minutes, Ottawa was 1-0.
Just 35 seconds into the 2nd period, Jordan Kyrou took a penalty on Dylan Gambrell, sending the game down to 4v4 for a while and then to a Senators power play. Ottawa’s power play then worked its magic when Stützle played a phenomenal pass to Alex DeBrincat, who wired a one-timer to Greiss’ short side. It was the kind of play we were hoping to see more of from DeBrincat this season:
And after that point, the floodgates seemed to open. Stützle continued his sovereignty after an excellent pass from Thomas Chabot to Brady Tkachuk, who then missed a wide open Stützle. Greiss had no chance against Stützles Dekes and put Ottawa in a 3-0 stranglehold:
But the senators didn’t stop there and burst into laughter extremely quickly. Two and a half minutes after the Stützle goal, Claude Giroux had a wonderful offensive transition and somehow kept getting to the puck, leading to his executing a Hagel Mary shot from the top of the zone. Tkachuk was able to get a stick on it and tip it past Greiss. It could was a high stick, but it was too close to say on the replay, so the on-ice call was a good target.
Then just two and a half minutes later The goal, Batherson would also intervene and make it 5-0. Ottawa was lucky in this case as well, with Austin Watson facing a boarding penalty, but Tyler Tucker wanted to fight him and canceled the power play with an instigator penalty. In the 4-on-4 game, Pinto handed it to DeBrincat, who gave Batherson another excellent cross ice pass and then made no mistake on the shot. It was great to see the offense finally fire on all guns:
After 40 minutes it was 5:0 and the game already seemed a long way off. Somehow Ottawa felt the need to keep the pressure on and Stützle would get his second of the night thanks to a neutral zone pass from Artem Zub. As I said, Stützle alone is worth the price of admission:
It was 6-0, the biggest lead they’ve had in a game this season. The Blues were able to add two late lucky goals that squeaked past Mads Søgaard but it was hard to blame him for either. I don’t understand how, but the Blues ended up with 32 shots despite never seeming that close to a goal for most of the game.
Ottawa scored another goal that didn’t matter aside from the fact that it was Ridly Greig’s first of his career. It’s a shame he didn’t want to celebrate too much because of the score, but I know a lot of people were so excited for him:
In the end it was 7-2, the Senators’ most one-sided win of the season.
- The only other game where the offense looked The deadly was the home opener against the Boston Bruins. The top 6 looked unstoppable and the forwards actually took their chances. The top of their lineup has sky-high potential.
- Although Ottawa played fantastically, Greiss looked as bad as a goalie can look. That shouldn’t detract from the efforts and execution of the senators today, however.
- Søgaard didn’t seem to have too difficult a game, but he stopped the puck when needed and only allowed two goals when the game was already 6-0. So far, he has reached as high as 0.913 SV% in four games.
- Stützle is now on pace for 90 points in 78 games or 95 in 82 games if he hasn’t previously missed four. Imagine if he weren’t already logged into an extension?
- With an assist from Erik Brännström, he now has one goal and three assists in five games.
- After today’s performance, Ottawa is somehow just two points behind the Buffalo Sabers (eighth best team by point percentage) and has played a game more. They’re… kinda not out yet.
- Logan Brown played 13:28 for the Blues, which was strange because I feel like we’ve drifted away from him so quickly and forgotten him. He’s still not really stuck in the NHL and plays for St. Louis.
Ottawa’s next game is tomorrow at 1:00 p.m. EST against the Boston Bruins.
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