Ottawa Senators Not Taking Anything For Granted After a Game Five Victory

After Saturday’s Game Four win at the Canadian Tire Centre, Brady Tkachuk said, “We’ll be back here!” Tkachuk’s words rang true as the Ottawa Senators blanked the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-0, earning a Game Five victory, setting the stage for another must-win Thursday at the CTC.

The Senators staved off elimination for the second straight game and eighth time in franchise history.

Goalie Linus Ullmark recorded his first career playoff shutout, making 29 saves.

It was the Maple Leafs who started strong, outshooting Ottawa 12-3 in a goalless first period.

Senators defenceman Thomas Chabot opened the scoring 3:46 into the middle frame with a point shot through a screen, which started with a Tim Stützle faceoff win over Leafs Auston Matthews. Tkachuk headed to the net after tapping the puck to Chabot, helping to create traffic in front of netminder Anthony Stolarz.

The Leafs had a glorious opportunity to tie it late in the second as Steven Lorentz was freed up on a 2-on-0 break. Senators Nik Matinpalo and David Perron skated back to break up what appeared to be a sure goal.

Leading 1-0 heading into the third period, Ridly Greig was overly aggressive in tackling Mitch Marner while playing minus his stick for seven minutes. Once again, in consecutive games, the Senators were forced to kill off a penalty at a key juncture.

Not only did the Senators stall the Leafs vaunted power play, but Adam Gaudette led a 2-on-1 rush, setting up Dylan Cozens for a shorthanded marker, putting his team up 2-0 with 8:24 left on the clock.

After allowing five goals over their first three games in the series, the Senators PK have now held the Leafs PP scoreless in their last seven opportunities, while posting two shorthanded tallies of their own.

With the Leafs pressing late, Matthews drew iron with five minutes remaining, but that’s as close as they would come.

Senators Claude Giroux, playing in his 100th career playoff game, found Stützle at the side of the Leafs net with Stolarz on the bench for an extra attacker at the 17:09 mark. Then Tkachuk closed out the game, adding a second empty-netter, completing a three-point evening.

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Tkachuk stated that his team’s resilience and goaltending were pivotal reasons for the win.

“I Think resilience is the biggest thing. I think that’s just not part of our identity as players. But I think it starts with him (Linus Ullmark). Those first couple games, it’s not the result we wanted, but to show your character and really come out and be your best when the time is needed, he stepped up for us,” Tkachuk said postgame Tuesday.

Tkachuk expects his teammates to continue pushing in Game Six in Ottawa on Thursday.

“No, we’re not going to go away easy. Our season is always on the line the last two games, and so it’s not going to change if we lose, we go home.”

Ullmark deferred when asked if he played his best game of the series. “You know it doesn’t really matter when you’re in a playoff series – how we do it. You can lose 1-0 and completely lose 6-2, and it’s still a loss. My job is to stop pucks, and every night it’s still about battling out there with the other goalie and the other team. “

“You try to make more saves than the other guy and come up victorious. And sometimes I’ve said it as well, that comes down to Lady Luck as well when it comes to certain different areas of the game, but you gotta earn it. You gotta earn it every single night, and not thinking that it’s just gonna happen every night or something like that, Because you never know, you look around the league as well and look at the team we’re playing as well. They’re very high-skilled and offensive minded team, so we stay patient every single night and don’t take anything for granted,”

Like his goaltender, Senators head coach Travis Green isn’t taking anything for granted, “You can feel great about yourself. You can feel shitty about yourself as well, or your team. And I think that’s those are the type of things that we’ve really talked to our team about throughout the season. And I think it’s paying dividends now. But again, we’ve won two games. We’re gonna enjoy it here for a couple hours, and then tomorrow will be set and we’re gonna have to play our asses off and play better in Game Six to get another game down.”

So now, the seed of doubt has been planted. The Leafs are 1-13 when attempting to close out a series. The Ottawa Senators have one job to do Thursday, and that’s to extend the series to seven games.

When trailing 3-2 in a postseason series, the Senators have forced a seventh and deciding game on three occasions in their short history.

In 2003, Chris Phillips scored an overtime goal in New Jersey; 2004 Mike Fisher netted a double OT game-winner in the opening round versus the Leafs, and Mike Hoffman netted the game winner in 2017 against Pittsburgh, keeping the Senators’ hopes alive in the Eastern Conference Finals.

As for Tkachuk, what does he expect from the Senators home crowd Thursday, “I expect pure insanity, that’s for sure.”