Ottawa Senators hang tough, but lose to Florida Panthers in overtime

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For all the criticism tossed in their face this season, the Ottawa Senators showed some fight Tuesday.

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They showed what is possible when they’re on their game.

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After a slow start Tuesday in Florida, they hung tough with the Panthers, now the Eastern Conference’s No. 1-ranked team, before falling 3-2 in overtime. Anton Lundell scored the game-winning goal.

“We came on and played better,” Senators head coach Jacques Martin told TSN 1200’s Gord Wilson. “The third period was probably our best period. We had a chance of winning, but we made a couple of mistakes that cost us.”

“I had the game on my stick in overtime and I’m disappointed I didn’t help us get the point,” said Senators captain Brady Tkachuk. “For us to get a point is good, but there was an opportunity to take two and it hurts we didn’t get it done.”

“Being down 2-0 going into the third, we stuck together,” said winger Drake Batherson. “To fight back and get a point out of it, we’ll take it.”

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It took the Panthers just 19 seconds into the game to jump ahead when Aaron Ekblad snuck in from the blue line and lifted a wristshot past Joonas Korpisalo, who was in net after Anton Forsberg backstopped the Senators to a 4-2 win Monday in Tampa Bay. Korpisalo settled in and played well.

Florida made it 2-0 with 2:59 left in the second period when defenceman Brandon Montour, blocked on his first attempt, snapped a shot past Korpisalo.

Less than a minute after being levelled by a hipcheck by Florida defenceman Dmitri Kulikov, Thomas Chabot got Ottawa on the scoreboard with a shot from the top of the faceoff circle 5:36 into the third period.

Tim Stutzle, with a terrific solo effort as he fought off three Panthers, tied the game with 11:14 left.

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“We knew it wasn’t going to be easy, there’s a reason (the Panthers are) having a lot of success,” said Chabot. “The start of the game is what it is, you have 59 more minutes to play. You can’t worry too much about that first shift. Every single one of us would rather go home with a win, but you have to take some positives out of the loss.”

Ottawa plays its next two games at home — Thursday vs. Dallas and Saturday vs. Las Vegas.

“We’ll have a day off (Wednesday) and regroup, then play a tough team Thursday at home,” said Martin.

FIGHTING MAD

Remember the last time the Senators faced off against the Panthers: Nov. 27, the teams combined for 167 penalty minutes, the second most in any NHL game this season, in a 5-0 Florida win. The Tkachuk brothers were in the centre of it. Senators winger Zack MacEwen jumped Matthew Tkachuk and took a five-minute match penalty. Defenceman Jake Sanderson also fought Matthew. Brady was in the middle of a third-period scuffle where every player on the ice was given a 10-minute misconduct.

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STARTS AND STOPS

Sergei Bobrovsky, in goal for Florida, made a big stop on Tkachuk breakaway with seven minutes left in the first period … Bobrovsky came up big again near the midway point of the second period when Shane Pinto moved in alone and fired a blast at the goalie … The Senators held the Panthers without a shot in the final seven minutes of the first period. The shotless stretch ballooned to 13 minutes, going into the second period … The Senators, with the NHL’s 30th-ranked penalty-kill unit, escaped any damage on a first-period penalty to Artem Zub, who got a delay of game penalty when he flipped the puck over the glass. Soon after, they killed another, allowing no shots, with Stutzle in the box for cross-checking … Mathieu Joseph took a deflection to the face, but shook it off.

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