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Too often this season, the Ottawa Senators have been dragged down by goaltending.
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It happened again Thursday in Seattle.
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It wasn’t Ottawa’s goalie that did the damage this time – Joonas Korpisalo was decent enough – but Kraken netminder Joey Daccord, a former Senator, was sensational, stopping 31-of-32 shots, in Seattle’s 4-1 win.
Seattle extended its winning streak to six, while the Senators lost their second straight.
Remember Daccord? The Senators selected him in the seventh round of the 2015 NHL Draft. He played nine games for Ottawa between 2018-21. But Ottawa left him unprotected in the 2021 expansion draft and the Kraken snagged him.
It was Daccord’s 10th win of the season.
“He was standing on his head, credit to him,” Senators defenceman Jake Sanderson told TSN 1200’s Gord Wilson. “But I don’t think we made it hard enough for him. He played great, but it was lot of perimeter play. We had our chances, we had a couple of Grade A’s, a couple of backdoor plays.”
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“He’s a pretty good goalie, but if you’re not getting in front of him, he’s going to see the puck and probably make the save,” Parker Kelly, who had Ottawa’s lone goal, said.
For the Senators, the memory of Tuesday’s 6-3 loss – they trailed 5-0 after the first period – to the Vancouver Canucks was still fresh. But this was a different kind of loss. They were much better. But turnovers continued to be costly.
“The start was definitely better than last game,” Sanderson said. “In the second (period), the last five minutes, I thought our mind slipped a bit. and we paid for it.”
“Five minutes cost us the hockey game,” Martin said. “We lost our composure. We tried to cheat, we gave them some opportunities and they scored two.”
The Senators had an early edge, outshooting the Kraken 13-7 in the first period. Seattle outshot Ottawa 15-13 in the second period, though Ottawa had some great chances.
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After a couple of Senators’ turnovers deep in their own zone, the Kraken opened the scoring near the midway point of the first period, with Yanni Gourde getting the goal.
Josh Norris thought he had a goal early in the second period; the puck got through Daccord’s pads, but came to rest just outside the goal line.
The Senators took over, but Daccord stopped a Tim Stutzle blast from in close and Jakob Chychrun, with an open net, shot wide.
Thomas Tatar made it 2-0 with 4:39 left in the second period when Tomas Tatar snuck in behind Ottawa’s defence, broke in alone and went from his backhand to forehand to beat Korpisalo.
It was 3-0 after Stutzle fell in the offensive zone and gave up the puck, leading to a goal by Andre Burakovsky.
Kelly, with a redirect from the front of the net, finally beat Daccord (with 7:40 left) after a sustained period of pressure by the Senators.
With Korpisalo pulled for an extra attacker, defenceman Vince Dunn made it 4-1 with a shot that travelled the length of the ice.
Ottawa’s next game is Saturday in Edmonton.
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