Islanders 5, Senators 4

Travis Green was seething.

The Ottawa Senators’ head coach wasn’t alone on that front after they spoiled the Oktoberfest party with a disgraceful 5-4 loss to the New York Islanders on Saturday afternoon in front of 15,929 at the Canadian Tire Centre.

Green could handle the loss, but he didn’t like the way it happened one bit, after New York’s Anders Lee scored the winner with 63 seconds left, which meant the Senators’ effort until then was totally pointless.

“It’s disappointing, for starters,” Green said. “I thought we got too loose when we got the lead. There were a lot of things that we took pride in last year that we were good at that we weren’t good at tonight.

“There is a certain style of play that we want. There has been a lot of talk about creating more offence, but that doesn’t mean cheating for offence. That part of our game isn’t tight right now.”

The Senators were too easy to play against.

“We’re on the wrong side of the puck,” Green added. “We’re not making hard players, loose plays, loose passes, losing puck battles in certain areas of the rink or joining the rush when there’s no time to join.

“Different things like that, or making a play inside the blue-line when it’s not the time or place. When you have the lead, you’ve got to keep making a team come 200 feet and create offence with your forecheck. That’s when you’re a good team. We did a lot of good things tonight, but I thought our mindset was a little loose.”

STICKING WITH THE STARTER

The Senators have allowed 30 goals in six games this season. The winning goal by Lee was the result of a comedy of errors that turned out not to be funny.

Senators defenceman Jordan Spence got beat to a loose puck in the Ottawa zone. Lee then turned and beat netminder Linus Ullmark with a shot through the five-hole.

Ullmark stopped only 18 of 23 shots. He needs to find a way to turn this around.

“We’ve got to learn from it,” said veteran winger David Perron, who scored his second goal of the season. “I’m surprised we haven’t because of what we went through last year. We’ve got to get right back on the program as soon as we can. That’s how you get successful.”

Ullmark came into this game with a 9-6-1 lifetime record versus the Isles, combined with a 2.55 goals-against average and a .908 save percentage. He had delivered a solid effort in the Senators’ victory over the Seattle Kraken on Thursday night.

Kyle Palmieri tied it 4-4 for the Islanders six minutes into the third period. That was a shot Ullmark would have wanted to have back.

The Isles had already erased a previous two-goal deficit in the second period with goals from Bo Horvat and Emil Heineman.

There were stretches where Ullmark played well, though.

He had to come up big because the Senators had some lapses defensively. He stopped Jean-Gabriel Pageau on a shorthanded breakaway with six minutes left in the second period.

Ullmark also made a huge 10-bell save on Pageau with the heel of his stick in the opening minutes of the contest. You will be seeing video replays of that save everywhere. Later, he made a good point-blank stop against Jonathan Drouin.

CRAZY SECOND

Shane Pinto is sizzling, but he was stopped on a penalty shot by New York’s Ilya Sorokin early in the third period. That came after Pinto was taken down on a shorthanded breakaway by rookie Matthew Schaefer.

Pinto scored his seventh goal in six games for a 2-0 Senators lead at 5:32 of a wild second period, when the two teams combined for six goals.

Pinto became the first player in franchise history to score seven times in that six-game stretch to start the season, but on this day it wasn’t enough

After the Isles tied it up, Tim Stutzle gave the Senators a brief lead at 3-2, but Ottawa had a terrible shift after that and allowed New York’s Max Shabonov to tie it. Playing on the left side of Stutzle, Dylan Cozens beat Ilya Sorokin 62 seconds later for a 4-3 Ottawa lead through 40 minutes.

“We do a lot of good things, but we shoot ourselves in the foot every time,” Stutzle said. “Small turnovers, we don’t get the puck deep, then good teams and good players make you pay. That’s just not good enough.

“It’s on us. We’ve got to make smarter decisions. It’s early in the year, but that can’t be an excuse.”

The Senators scored the opening goal for the first time in six games this season. Perron beat Sorokin through the five-hole on the powerplay at 17:01 of the first period.

SHIFTING LINES

Trying to ignite the offence with captain Brady Tkachuk on the shelf with a surgically repaired right hand, Green made some significant changes to his forward lines before and during the game.

Winger Fabian Zetterlund, who started the season on the first unit, was dropped to the fourth line, which was a little surprising given that he had signed a three-year, $12.825-million U.S. deal in the summer.

Called up from the American Hockey League’s Belleville Senators, Arthur Kaliyev took Tkachuk’s spot on the right side with Stutzle and Claude Giroux. Midway through the second, Stutzle was on the left side with Cozens at centre and Drake Batherson on right wing.

bgarrioch@postmedia.com

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