The Ottawa Senators left the Music City singing a hurtin\u2019 tune, and they had nobody to blame but themselves.<\/p>\n
The Senators blew a three-goal lead only to see Steven Stamkos complete the hat-trick with 1:13 left to secure a 5-3 victory for the Nashville Predators on Thursday at Bridgestone Arena.<\/p>\n
Nothing has come easily for the Senators all season, and their 3-0 lead slowly evaporated until they suddenly found themselves in a tie game late in the third period against the Predators.<\/p>\n
Goaltender James Reimer deserved a better fate than the meltdown that was taking place in front of him. Dylan Cozens, Ridly Greig, and Stephen Halliday scored for the Senators, who allowed five straight goals.<\/p>\n
The Senators had too many passengers and got exactly what they deserved when the final buzzer sounded.<\/p>\n
Stamkos\u2019 second of the game, and second on a power play, tied it with 9:53 left in the game. At that point, the Predators had the Senators on their heels, and thave struggled to keep leads in the last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe took way too many penalties, especially in the third; it\u2019s uncharacteristic for us to not at least get a point out of this,\u201d said a frustrated coach, Travis Green. \u201cI didn\u2019t think we had enough players that played a strong enough game for 60 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Predators battled back to close the gap to 3-2 at 8:19 of the third when Jonathan Marchessault beat Reimer. That came moments after the Senators killed off a double-minor to Fabian Zetterlund for high-sticking.<\/p>\n
THIRD GAME FOR JAMES<\/p>\n
The Senators stuck with Reimer in the net.<\/p>\n
Did they have any choice? No. Top goalie Linus Ullmark, who made the trip, wasn\u2019t ready to play and didn\u2019t dress as the backup. Reimer, 37, made 21 stops in the club\u2019s 4-1 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
In his first two games with Ottawa, Reimer had posted a 1-0-1 record with a .911 save percentage and a 2.51 goals-against average. The win in Columbus was his first National Hockey League win since April 17, 2025.<\/p>\n
Moments after Reimer made a dive across the net to make the stop, Stamkos scored on the power play to cut Ottawa\u2019s lead to 3-1 with only 1:26 left in the second period.<\/p>\n
Cozens scored his fourth goal in five games to give the Senators a 3-0 lead. He tipped a shot by Nashville goaltender Juuse Saros with 9:14 left in the second period.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s been outstanding. He\u2019s made some massive saves tonight,\u201d Cozens told TSN\u2019s Gord Miller about Reimer after the second period. \u201cHe\u2019s just so confident and so poised. He\u2019s playing great for us, and we\u2019re trying to limit the chances on him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Reimer couldn\u2019t do it all himself.<\/p>\n
EVERY NIGHT IS BIG<\/p>\n
The Senators came into this game with points in five straight games and a 4-4-2 record in their last 10. They would like to get back into the playoff picture before the Olympic break, and every game is a must-win.<\/p>\n
Playing well and losing won\u2019t cut it anymore. The Senators already need help from the clubs in front of them, and have to close the gap with points. That\u2019s the only path to making the playoffs for a second straight spring.<\/p>\n
The Senators just can\u2019t afford to let three-goal leads slip away, whether it\u2019s against a Western Conference team or not. The Senators have had huge issues playing 60 minutes all season, and this was no different.<\/p>\n
The club is sitting seven points out of the final wildcard spot in the East.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re taking too many penalties,\u201d said Stutzle. \u201cIt hurts. It\u2019s definitely really frustrating. When you\u2019re up 3-0, you should win those games. They\u2019re a good team, but if we just play our game in the third and put the pucks in the hard areas, we\u2019re going out of here with a win tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
HAPPY HALLIDAY<\/p>\n
The Senators were up 2-0 after the first period and had looked good.<\/p>\n
Halliday, 23, who had six assists in 18 games in his previous games for Ottawa, had a game he will remember with his first NHL goal by opening the scoring in the first period.<\/p>\n
He went to the net and was able to backhand the puck over the right pad of Saros at 6:03. The Ajax native, who was selected No. 104 overall in the 2022 NHL draft, had been searching for that one.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really fun,\u201d said Halliday. \u201cIt\u2019s always a pleasure to be in the NHL and I\u2019m super grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n
Called up earlier in the day, it was a good way for Halliday to settle into his fourth-line role with the club. He\u2019ll be in Ottawa for a while after the club learned it will be without veteran winger David Perron for seven weeks.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the fifth time in six games that the Senators have opened the scoring.<\/p>\n
Greig, coming off a two-point effort in Columbus, extended Ottawa\u2019s lead to 2-0 by scoring for the second straight game. He took a pass from Michael Amadio, had a partial break and beat Saros on the short side at 14:19.<\/p>\n
It looked like Greig may have added another late going hard to the net, but it wasn\u2019t reviewed, and there was no challenge from the Ottawa bench.<\/p>\n
The Senators will open a four-game home stand against the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday.<\/p>\n
bgarrioch@postmedia.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ottawa Senators left the Music City singing a hurtin\u2019 tune, and they had nobody to blame but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423522,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5104],"tags":[29,230,831,2804,7010,5,6874,781,1500,539,8529,231,4,72,25,5157,1188,73,1087,1489,41085],"class_list":["post-423521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa-senators","tag-carolina-hurricanes","tag-columbus-blue-jackets","tag-david-perron","tag-dylan-cozens","tag-fabian-zetterlund","tag-hockey","tag-james-reimer","tag-jonathan-marchessault","tag-juuse-saros","tag-linus-ullmark","tag-michael-amadio","tag-nashville-predators","tag-nhl","tag-ottawa","tag-ottawa-senators","tag-ottawasenators","tag-ridly-greig","tag-senators","tag-stephen-halliday","tag-steven-stamkos","tag-stutzle"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115944354979188603","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=423521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423521\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}