When the sporting gods serve up a lob ball, it is imperative to smash it out of the park.
Applying the metaphor to Saturday’s hockey game, the Ottawa Senators not only stared that gift horse in the mouth, they gawked, balked, and stalked the wounded New York Islanders but could not take advantage of their opponent’s injury crisis.
Down two starting defencemen in the early minutes of the first period, the visitors rolled on to a 5-3 win over Ottawa while playing just four defencemen against Ottawa’s healthy six. Four defencemen is perfect for pickup games on a Friday night. In the NHL, it is usually fatal.
And no, the Islanders did not play it safe, preserving the bodies of those who were able to play. They blocked 31 Senators’ shots, laying down their bodies to protect backup goaltender Semyon Varlamov.
So much for the Senators picking up where they left off in Sweden last week, with two wins in the Global Series.
“We just didn’t make it hard enough on them, defensively,” said Senators head coach D.J. Smith.
With the loss, the Sens fell back to .500 at 8-8. Two of their eight defeats have come against an Islanders team clinging to fourth place in the Metro Division.
Psychologically, the Senators and their fans bear the weight of sitting in last place in the Atlantic Division. Yes, the Sens have games in hand on every team ahead of them, but the gap is now seven points between the fifth-place Detroit Red Wings and Ottawa in eight.
And hey, how about those Red Wings winning two straight after a disappointing two-game set in Sweden? On it goes in the up-and-down carousel of the Eastern Conference, where powerhouses are few and a path is open to any team that gets hot.
Can the Senators be one of those teams?
For now, they sit around until a Monday game against Florida and then another long pause before a Dec. 1 date in Columbus.
Plenty of time to think about Friday’s lost opportunity against the Islanders.
Before the game was four minutes old, the Isles had already lost two starting defencemen, including first-pairing defenceman Adam Pelech 55 seconds into the game. After a hit by Drake Batherson, Pelech left clutching his arm. After playing just 1:28, third-pairing defenceman Sebastien Aho was also finished for the night.
Noah Dobson played 31:05 for the Islanders and was even on the night, with one assist and five blocks.
“I felt like I was back in junior,” Dobson said afterward, of his time on ice.
And yet, there was no immediate impact on either team from the Islanders bad luck.
Thus began as one of those sleepy games the Islanders love so well.
Both teams were a little tentative to start, Ottawa taking a 1-0 lead on a power play goal by Batherson, but the Isles battled back to tie it with 6:05 left in the first period as Kyle Palmieri banged a rebound past Anton Forsberg.
A 1-1 game after 20 minutes had all the makings of a typical 2-1 game against the structured Islanders. That notion fell apart in a wild second period. The Islanders scored three in a row, the latter two just six seconds apart to take a 4-1 lead and stun what had been a raucous home crowd of 17,693 at the Canadian Tire Centre.
Oliver Wahlstrom tipped a shot by defenceman Alexander Romanov and Mathew Barzal scored on a power play. Off the faceoff, New York gained possession and Anders Lee surprised Forsberg with a quick shot.
In their history, the Senators have never allowed two goals, six seconds apart. Until now.
On some nights, in some rinks, allowing three straight for a three-goal deficit would be game over.
Ottawa did rebound, however.
On another one of his veteran, savvy moves, Senators winger Claude Giroux turned the game around by leaning into Dobson and springing the puck free for Mathieu Joseph to feed Tim Stützle in the slot for a goal midway through the second period to give fans hope.
Less than a minute later, Batherson wired home his second of the evening to draw the Sens within one.
No wonder Stützle would classify this as a “weird” game.
Down 4-3 on home ice playing against four defencemen, who didn’t like Ottawa’s chances of prevailing in the third period.
“I was one hundred per cent confident we were going to win that game,” Stützle said. “There was never a doubt in my mind. Even if they score (to make it) 5-3, I thought we were going to win for sure. We had some good looks. Give credit to their goalie, he made some huge saves, especially in the 6-on-5 (net empty).
“They played hard tonight, they played hard defensively,” Stützle added. “I think when we played the way we wanted to play, the way the coach wanted us to play we had a chance to win.”
Unanimous in the dressing room and coaches’ room was the opinion the Sens did not do enough to put pressure on those four surviving defencemen for New York.
“We talked about putting it behind them and putting miles on their D,” Stützle said. “When we did that we were successful.”
Too bad they didn’t make it a habit.
“When (they) have four D, you want to bang into them as much as you can, work them down low, east-west,” said Batherson. “They’re a good defensive team. You have to give them credit.”
New York’s fourth goal was a killer, coming so soon after the power play goal by Barzal.
Off the centre ice faceoff, the Isles roared up ice and Lee got off an average shot that beat Forsberg.
“I gotta have that for sure,” Forsberg said. “It’s uphill from there. I’ve got to find more consistency.”
Just last Saturday, Forsberg played the Swedish hero, beating the Minnesota Wild 2-1 in a shootout. Prior to that, he had given up five, six and six goals against in his previous three starts, all losses. Now another five goals yielded on 26 shots, an .808 save percentage.
On the season, Forsberg is 3-4-0 with a 3.51 goals-against and .850 save percentage.
Sens starter Joonas Korpisalo is day-to-day with an undisclosed injury and was not available Friday.
The Senators have one game left in November, Monday versus the Panthers, with a chance to close out the month with a winning record. Ottawa is 4-4 in November and has played 12 of 16 games on home ice, including two ‘home’ games in Stockholm.
Four of the Senators’ next five games are also at the CTC before their schedule gets busy and road-heavy.
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