No Tkachuks? No Problem.

Recap

First Period:

• Gord and Jamie spend several minutes arguing over the pronunciation of Brad Marchand’s name, not realizing that it doesn’t matter, since every sports fan not in Boston or Florida prefers to just call him “a piece of shit”.
• GOAL! (Senators 1 – Panthers 0): Seth Jones does a Seth Jones thing and forgets that he’s a defenseman and not a biogenetically engineered turnover machine while laying the puck beautifully over to Pinto in his own zone. Jake Sanderson recognizes the open space and slips down into the left hand circle to receive a well placed pass and blast it through Sergei Bobrovsky’s short side.
• PP GOAL! (Senators 2 – Panthers 0): Drake Batherson decides that scoring on an empty net is just too easy, and so he decides to miss an absolute sitter, only to score five seconds later off a tip from a Dylan Cozens shot. Cozens, angry that Batherson tipped a goal that would have absolutely gone in on it’s own, threatens to return to Buffalo. He then realizes that would mean he’d have to return to Buffalo, and so he takes it back.
• Nikolas Matinpalo is worried that A.J. Greer will crash Tkachuks Walk-a-Thon event, and so he attempts to remove his legs for him.

Second Period:

• Shoutout Matthew Highmore, who has been playing some really solid hockey as of late. His steady presence in the bottom-6 is part of what allowed Steve Staios the confidence to move a guy like Zack Ostapchuk at the deadline. I would love to see him come back on another vet min next year. He also has this shit eating grin that is very fun.
• Several Panthers catch the Senators lacking for a 2-on-0 breakaway. Luckily for the Sens, one of said Panthers players is Adam Boqvist, who hasn’t scored in 25 games and has the stick handling of my dyslexia addled grandmother, who by the way died in 2023.
• The CTC media people accidentally blast Brad Marchand’s face all over the big screen, causing poor Ottawa children everywhere to scream in fear and disgust. One child is quoted as saying “mommy, is it Halloween already?”
• Anton Forsberg disappears down the tunnel when nobody is looking and is replaced by Prime Dominik Hasek.
• Mackie Samsoskevich takes a momentary break from having a stupid name to try and concuss Artem Zub.
• Evan Rodriguez discovers the only way to beat Anton Forsberg is to score illegally. A Panthers goal is disallowed for high sticking.
• “Ottawa went 10 minutes without a shot this per-” SHUT UP GORD WE’RE WINNING! We all scream in unison.

Third Period:

• Brad Marchand is somehow, after two entire periods of hockey, still ugly.
• Angus Crookshank is listed as 5’11” on eliteprospects but someone tell me why he always looks like he’s about three feet tall? Good wheels on him though.
• Gord and Jamie spend a minute talking about eating pepperoni pizza in České Budějovice as if anyone in their right mind would know where that is. According to TripAdvisor, it’s number two attraction is a Budweiser Brewery. Which begs the question, how much are tickets and when are we going?
• A hot mic catches Nick Jensen calling Brad Marchand a “fucking puss-” oh no whoops sorry that was me yelling through my television screen.
• Niko Mikkola gets a penalty for shooting the puck into the net after the whistle and Ridly Greig gets a penalty for existing. Gary Bettman’s America.
• GOAL! (Senators 3 – Panthers 0): Matthew Highmore (didn’t some genius just shout him out recently?) scores on the empty net and Mark Sutcliffe announces a parade. Unfortunately, the parade is scheduled to begin at the CTC, so will take approximately 9 hours to make it into downtown Ottawa.
• Seth Jones swears that once he learns how to skate, play defense, or have an ounce of hockey IQ, he’ll be a top-65 NHL defenseman.
• A.J. Greer kindly celebrates Derek Nansen’s last game as an NHL linemen by punching him 400 times in the chest, shoulder, and head.
• The Panthers apparently have a player named *checks notes, rubs eyes* Uvis Balinskis? C’mon guys… who let their NHL 14 career mode player out on the ice?
• Sources who just watched him expertly dive under A.J. Greer’s crosscheck say Tim Stutzle has been watching Cobra Kai to get to sleep.

Post-Game:

• Anton Forsberg responds to Sens fans “we want playoffs” chants with “we want them too”. Give that man a statue.

Analysis

Just one game after the Sens get bailed out by Linus Ullmark, Anton Forsberg decides it’s his turn to steal a game, and makes 40 saves en route to his third shutout of the year. Watching him tonight felt a little bit like watching Connor Hellebuyck. He wasn’t forcing himself to make any Roberto Luongo style diving saves; he was calm in the net, poised and well positioned. It almost felt like he was having a quiet, low-shots game, until every once in a while you’d look at the shot total and think holy shit, he’s faced HOW many!?!?

Forsberg’s shutout marks the league-leading ninth of the year for the Sens, who have had three shutouts from three different goaltenders, a feat which has only happened four times in NHL history. The Sens goaltending duo has been really stringing them together as of late, which is a great sign going into the playoffs, especially with Ullmark being relatively injury prone. However, it is going to lead to some difficult decisions this offseason. With Leevi Merilainen in the pipeline and playing how he has this year, I feel like most people have assumed that this would be Forsberg’s last year between the CTC pipes. I would argue, though, that it couldn’t hurt to have him on a 2-2.5 million dollar contract. When Ullmark inevitably get hurt next season, and Merilainen finds himself struggling with the sudden weight of being a starting goalie at age 24, it would be nice to have a veteran presence hanging out on the wings.

In other news, it was nice to see the Sens have some fire in their bellies without Tkachuk there to do it for them. At the end of the game when the Panthers were just trying to build some momentum into their next game and strike some fear, the Sens stood tall and didn’t let themselves get tossed around. For all my criticisms of Stutzle’s inability to score lately, he’s really kicked up his physical presence a notch this season, which is a really good sign from a guy that has often been deemed a “soft player”. That Ridly Greig contract is an absolute steal, too. I love him on the pesky Sens.

The Cozens-Batherson-Perron line was very invisible to me after a strong first period performance. I would like to see Cozens be more engaged in the defensive end when the offense is flowing. He’s cooled off from that initial post-trade excitement, and we’re starting to see some of the flaws in his game. On the bright side, they seem to be very fixable issues, mostly to do with effort and awareness. He gets caught puck watching a lot.

All in all, very forgettable game from the Sens. But the defense wasn’t as horrid as the 40-shot total would have you to believe, and the offense capitalized on their most dangerous chances, which is all you can really hope for.