Tkachuk gets 4 points, Senators ease past Rangers

NEW YORK -- Brady Tkachuk scored his 200th NHL goal and had three assists, and the Ottawa Senators won for the second straight night, 8-4 against the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday.

"We played to our identity, and we're a tough team to play against," Tkachuck said. "I think (Tuesday) we put a really good, 60-minute effort in and couldn't capitalize on some chances. And tonight, I thought for the most part we played a really solid game."

Dylan Cozens had a goal and two assists, and Ridly Greig had three assists for his first career three-point game for the Senators (22-19-5).

Jake Sanderson, David Perron and Nick Jensen each had a goal and an assist.

Leevi Merilainen, in his ninth consecutive start and 10th straight appearance, made 18 saves. He also made 19 saves in a 2-1 win against the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday that ended a four-game losing streak.

"When you go on a little streak and you haven't won for a few, everything gets magnified," Ottawa coach Travis Green said. "We've talked about certain parts of our game and we've talked about really committing to playing our kind of hockey and our identity."

The Rangers (20-22-6) lost their fifth consecutive game (0-4-1) and fourth in a row at home, where they are 5-13-4 this season. Gabe Perreault scored twice for his first multigoal NHL game, and Alexis Lafreniere had a goal and an assist.

Jonathan Quick allowed six goals on 17 shots before being replaced in the second period by Spencer Martin, who made 11 saves in relief.

New York has allowed 30 goals in its five-game losing streak.

"Listen, we've gone through a rash of emotions," Rangers coach Mike Sullivan said. "There's been tons of anger. We've run through the gamut of emotions here trying to right this thing and get it going in the right direction. We'll continue to try to solve it. There's no easy answers. We've got to work hard. We've got to work together. We've got to stick together. We've got to stay together, and we've got to compete together. And that's what we're going to do."

The Senators scored four times in the first period.

Drake Batherson started it with a power-play goal at 2:18, scoring off a rebound of Cozens' shot from the high slot, a one-timer off a pass from Tkachuk out of the right face-off circle.

"They get momentum right off the bat," Sullivan said. "It's a tough way to start the game. Obviously, we've got to find a way to have more resilience, be able to recover and overcome that."

Instead of that happening, Jensen extended Ottawa's lead to 2-0 at 4:53 when his shot from the right point targeted for a Cozens redirect near the left post instead went in off New York defenseman Braden Schneider's skate.

Tkachuk made it 3-0 at 15:01, becoming the fourth player in Senators history to score 200 goals with the team. He scored with a far-side shot from the right circle off a 2-on-1 rush with Cozens.

Cozens scored at 19:54 to give Ottawa a 4-0 lead going into intermission.

"I thought that was probably the best first period I've seen from this team," Tkachuk said.

It was the first time the Rangers allowed four goals in the first period this season.

"They were more ready to play," New York captain J.T. Miller said.

Jake Sanderson pushed it 5-0 at 5:57 of the second period, and Thomas Chabot extended the lead to 6-0 at 12:23 to chase Quick from the game.

"That was big," Green said of scoring the first two goals in the second period. "We haven't been in a lot of leads like that. We're used to playing tight games, low-scoring event hockey. It's a little uncharted waters for our group but I thought we handled it well."

Perreault cut it to 6-1 at 18:55 and made it 6-2 at 5:26 of the third period. Miller and Mika Zibanejad had both assists on each goal.

Perron banked in a shot off Martin to put the Senators up 7-2 at 8:20.

Noah Laba got a piece of Lafreniere's wrist shot for a power-play goal to make it 7-3 at 10:44, and then Lafreniere scored at 15:58 to make the deficit 7-4.

Tim Stutzle secured the 8-4 final with an empty-net goal at 19:11.

"It was a huge game, especially back-to-back coming in, traveling, getting in late and having the start we did," Jensen said. "That was good to see and extremely important in this win."

NOTES: Tkachuk became the fourth player in Senators history to reach 200 career goals. He also became the second-fastest Ottawa player (538 games) to hit the milestone, following Alexei Yashin (471 games). ... Stutzle's goal was his 20th of the season, making him the third German-born player in NHL history with four seasons of 20 or more goals, joining Leon Draisaitl (10) and Marco Sturm (seven). Stutzle and Draisaitl will play for Germany next month in the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026. … The Senators scored eight goals in a road game for the first time since an 8-2 win at the Florida Panthers on Dec. 14, 2021. … Quick made his 800th career NHL start.