Stutzle's OT goal lifts Senators past Oilers

OTTAWA --
Tim Stutzle
scored with 38 seconds remaining in overtime to give the Ottawa Senators a 3-2 win against the Edmonton Oilers at Canadian Tire Centre on Monday.

Stutzle took a pass along the boards from Brady Tkachuk, skated into the left circle and shot short side over the right shoulder of Mikko Koskinen.
"I actually tried to see if [Thomas Chabot] was open," Stutzle said. "But then I saw the little spot up there and just tried to shoot it and it went in."
Stutzle had left the game in the third period with a cut over his eye after fighting Oilers defenseman William Lagesson. He returned and took one final shift before the overtime.
"Let's be clear, you don't want [Stutzle] fighting ever," Senators coach D.J. Smith said. "But he gets in a fight, comes back and does what he does. I mean, we've got a real, real hockey player on our hands."

Chabot had a goal and an assist, and Tkachuk had two assists for Ottawa (14-21-4), which is 3-1-2 in its past six games. Matt Murray made 37 saves and is 4-1-2 since being recalled from Belleville of the American Hockey League on Dec. 28.
"You've got to give him a lot of credit," Smith said of Murray. "When he came in at the start of the year, would he have ever thought that he'd go through waivers? A stint in the minors? A lot of guys would take the ball and go home and kind of turn their [back] to us, and he didn't. He went to work, never complained and came back and has brought a brand-new attitude and his own personal confidence."
Connor McDavid and Darnell Nurse scored, and Koskinen made 28 saves for Edmonton (22-16-3), which had its four-game winning streak end.
"Didn't finish. We didn't finish," Oilers coach Dave Tippett said. "Had some opportunities. In this league, the first one to three [goals] usually can win. We didn't get to three. They did."

Chabot gave the Senators a 1-0 lead at 11:32 of the first period. Koskinen made the initial save, but the puck deflected up into the air and the goalie accidentally knocked the puck in off his blocker.
McDavid took a stretch pass from Evan Bouchard and scored with a partial slap shot off the rush to tie it 1-1 at 12:17.
"I don't know if we played well enough through 60 minutes to deserve a win, in my opinion," Oilers forward Derek Ryan said. "But good on us to battle through and stick with it. They're a tough team to play against. They play hard, they play the right way. They keep a lot of pucks and bodies away from their net, and their goaltender was awesome, too."
Nicholas Paul gathered a rebound and put a backhand top shelf on the power play to make it 2-1 at 17:09 of the second period.
"I thought [Paul] was the best player on the ice for us," Smith said. "There's very few people in the world who can skate with McDavid, especially a forward [skating] back, and he did it in overtime, and with Draisaitl when he had to. He killed penalties, scored. I don't know what else he's got to do, but you know, he's playing with confidence and he's giving us a chance."

Nurse tied it 2-2 at 7:46 of the third period. Ryan took a pass from Zach Hyman on a 2-on-1 before passing back to Nurse, who skated in as the trailer on the play and scored into an open net.
"I think we could've probably had another step up in our effort, especially in the middle of that game," Nurse said. "But with that said, we found a way to get a point. We haven't been doing that much lately."
NOTES:Oilers defenseman Cody Ceci had four hits and a plus-1 rating in 22:44 in his return to Ottawa. Ceci was selected in the first round (No. 15) of the 2012 NHL Draft by the Senators and played his first six NHL seasons with them (2013-19). … The Senators are 16-for-16 on the penalty kill in their past six games.