Ottawa Senators deliver impressive New Year’s Eve win over Sabres

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Ottawa Senators 5, Buffalo Sabres 1

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Put on your party hats, blow into those noisemaker thingamajigs.

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On New Year’s Eve, at Canadian Tire Centre, Senators fans witnessed something they haven’t seen enough of the past couple of months — the Senators won a hockey game and looked good doing it.

The Senators were still sloppy at times — some of the mistakes that have hurt them this season were again evident. But, heading out for a five-game road trip that will extend until Jan. 11, the Senators said goodbye to a less-than-stellar 2023 with a solid 5-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres.

“I thought we played a pretty good game,” said Senators coach Jacques Martin. “We had some moments in the second period where I wasn’t pleased. I liked our response in the third. What I liked probably the most was our depth; our third and fourth lines played extremely well and got rewarded.”

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With the return of defenceman Thomas Chabot, Erik Brannstrom was moved to forward, playing left wing on the team’s fourth line. He had an assist and was plus-2.

“Having seven D … (Brannstrom is) a great skater, he’s got some good offensive skill,” said Martin. “He’d never played forward (in the NHL) so it was a bit of a shock (Sunday morning) when I talked to him about it. Sometimes you have to sacrifice when you make the team a priority. I thought he did a great job; I was really pleased with his performance. As I said to him, it’s not permanent. How long will it last? Time will tell.”

Senators goalie Anton Forsberg stopped 45 of 46 shots.

“I felt really good, not a lot of rebounds,” said Forsberg. “The team did a good job of keeping (the Sabres) outside and not screening me. Most of my saves were clean and that has a lot to do with it.”

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Chabot returned after a long absence with a leg injury and had two assists.

“There are still some thing we want to work on,” said Chabot. “They had a lot of shots on net, but we didn’t give them much inside. I (felt) a little rusty, I’m not going to lie. But I’m happy I got through the first game. Everything went well and we got the win – that’s all that matters.”

The Senators dominated the first period, but led just 2-1 when Buffalo’s Tage Thompson scored a soft goal with 14 seconds left.

The Senators, on the power play, took a 1-0 lead 6:51 into the game when Jakob Chychrun one-timed a nice pass from Claude Giroux past Buffalo goalie Devon Levi.

It was 2-0 after Zack MacEwen, with his first goal as a Senator, found the net with a slapshot from the top of the right faceoff circle.

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Following a bad Senators’ giveaway early in the second period, Forsberg came up with back-to-back big stops from in close.

Ottawa made it 3-1 7:18 into the second period when Ridly Greig did some nifty stickhandling deep into the Buffalo zone and slid a pass across to Dominik Kubalik, who scored his eighth goal of the season.

Mark Kastelic scored with 16 seconds left in the second period.

Parker Kelly rifled a wrist shot past Levi in the third period. But a Coach’s Challenge, which was settled by video review in a few seconds, found the Senators were offside on the play.

Senators defenceman Artem Zub stole a puck near centre ice and scored into an empty net with 4:44 left.

Brannstrom came close in the dying seconds, with a spinning shot on net, but a video review decided it didn’t go into the net.

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