Blues 4, Senators 3
The Ottawa Senators were angry and frustrated on Friday night.
They had every right to be.
Even with the return of captain Brady Tkachuk from injury, the Senators couldn’t get off the ground in what became a terrible 4-3 loss to the St. Louis Blues in a U.S. Thanksgiving holiday matinee at the Enterprise Center.
The Senators came apart at the seams as the Blues scored three times in the third period to secure the two points.
David Perron, Fabian Zetterlund, and Shane Pinto scored for the Senators, while goaltender Jordan Binnington made 24 stops for the Blues.
Ottawa head coach Travis Green didn’t speak long after the contest, but he spoke volumes, and he was fuming.
“I saw 40 minutes that I didn’t mind,” Green said. “Uncharacteristically, I think we got careless and didn’t play with enough urgency in the third period.
“We turned over a couple of pucks; we didn’t pay attention to certain details that we usually do. And, it’s unfortunate because our goalie gave us a game, and we should have at least gotten a point or a win out of this game.”
That summed it up. Leevi Merilainen made 27 stops, but the Senators were awful in front of him in the third period.
This was the Senators’ fourth straight loss to the Blues in St. Louis, where Ottawa has won only one of the past seven appearances in that building.
Senators captain Brady Tkachuk (7) stickhandles the puck in front of Blues netminder Jordan Binnington in the first period. In his first game since thumb surgery six weeks earlier, Tkachuk had six shots on net.
UNHAPPY RETURN
Tkachuk made his return to the lineup exactly six weeks surgery to repair a torn ligament in his right thumb. It will take him time to get up to speed, but he made his return with his family in the stands.
There was a debate on where Green would use Tkachuk. He ended up starting the game at left wing with centre Dylan Cozens and right-winger Zetterlund.
He looked comfortable, playing 16 minutes and 50 seconds, but he only took two faceoffs, which is normally a big part of his game. Tkachuk led the Senators with six shots on Binnington and collected an assist on Zetterlund’s goal.
Tkachuk also landed a punch to the head of St. Louis defenceman Logan Mailloux with his left hand during a gathering early in the second period. Mailloux had crosschecked Tkachuk in the back, and he took exception to that, naturally. Cozens then stepped in.
“That’s a game where we’ve got the lead going into the third period, so we’ve got to find a way,” Tkachuk said. “It would have felt a lot better with the win. It was just nice to get back. I’m grateful to be back playing again, I’m just disappointed with the result.”
The Blues’ Matthew Kessel, top right, shovels the puck past Senators netminder Leevi Merilainen and defenceman Nicolas Matinpalo for what proved to be the winning goal in the third period of Friday’s contest.
WAKEUP CALL
The Senators had been 7-1-1 when leading after two periods of games this season and appeared to be in good shape with a 2-1 lead. That wasn’t the case, not in the least.
The Blues turned up the heat and left the Senators back on their heels. St. Louis scored three times in a span of 7:18 in the third period, capped by a goal from Matthew Kessel at 9:19.
Perron had tied it up 3-3 at 7:31, beating Binnington with a backhand after a giveaway, but Pavel Buchnevich and Jordan Kyrou had already taken advantage of terrible defensive errors by Ottawa to give St. Louis a lead.
“It wasn’t good enough,” Pinto said. “We had a bad start in the third. We had a good opportunity on the road, and we had a little bit of immaturity and we just didn’t get the job done.
“We were on our heels, we didn’t really attack, we didn’t play with detail and it bit us in the ass.”
Merilainen made his second start in three games and his sixth of the season, coming off a 20-save effort in the club’s 2-1 loss to the Los Angeles Kings on Monday. This was the first time in his career that he faced the Blues.
Merilainen came into this game with a 3-2-0 record in his five starts along with a 3.25 goals-against average and an .875 save percentage.
The Blues’ Mathieu Joseph passes the puck against defensive pressure by the Senators’ Drake Batherson in the second period.
SLOW START
A guy to keep an eye on is Zetterlund. He was always working hard, but now he’s having success around the net.
The road trip has allowed Zetterlund to find his scoring touch. He beat Binnington on a wraparound through the five-hole with a nifty move behind the net at 18:26 of the second period for what was his third goal in five games on the current road trip.
Pinto continued his torrid pace with his 12th of the campaign. He made a great second effort to pick up a loose puck and beat a sprawling Binnington only 1:12 after the Blues had opened the scoring.
Oskar Sundqvist broke a scoreless tie at 7:59 of the second period. He was able to bank a puck off the back of Merilainen and into the net.
You could feel that one coming because the Blues had stepped up the pace.
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