Senators score 5 in 3rd, pull away from Lightning

OTTAWA -- Jake Sanderson scored twice for his first multigoal game in the NHL, and Brady Tkachuk had four assists for the Ottawa Senators, who scored five goals in the third period to pull away for a 6-2 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning at Canadian Tire Centre on Tuesday.

“I think when you play a team like that with a lot of skill and a lot of talent, they're going to have their pushes,” Sanderson said. “And they're going to get their chances as well, but I thought we handled it pretty well and capitalized on our chances when we had them.”

Sanderson, who returned to the Senators lineup on April 4 after missing 13 games with an upper-body injury, set a new career high for goals in a single season with 13.

“I’ve said it a lot, he’s a special player,” Ottawa coach Travis Green said of Sanderson. “He’s still getting better. He loves the game. He’s well prepared. He’s a consummate pro and we just try not to overcoach him.”

Tim Stutzle had a goal and two assists, and Jordan Spence and Fabian Zetterlund also scored for the Senators (41-27-10), who have won three of their past four games. Drake Batherson had two assists, and Linus Ullmark made 28 saves.

Ottawa is two points ahead of the Columbus Blue Jackets for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference. 

“We've learned a lot, and every day this year it's an opportunity to learn, opportunity to grow,” Tkachuk said. “And this is the time of the year where we're showing it, and we're showing all that growth and all that lessons learned. So jobs are not done. We still have some very important moments, very important games coming up, and we'll be ready for it.” 

Stutzle said: “I think well-deserved win. Everybody stepped up, and obviously good to get the power play going.”

Nick Paul and Corey Perry each had a goal and an assist for the Lightning (48-24-6), who have lost three of five. Jonas Johansson made 25 saves. 

Tampa Bay is tied in points (102) with the idle Buffalo Sabres and Montreal Canadians, who defeated the Florida Panthers 4-3 in a shootout on Monday. If the season ended today, the Lightning would be the No. 1 seed, and the Sabres would be the No. 2 seed based on tiebreakers.

“Good on Ottawa,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “They’re desperate to get in the playoffs. And for us, we’re a playoff team, we’re just not playing like one right now. We only have a couple games here to figure it out and see where we land, but we need to be better than we are right now.”

Spence gave the Senators a 1-0 lead at 15:46, burying a wrist shot over Johansson's glove from the edge of the right face-off circle that bounced quickly off the back bar.

Paul tied it 1-1 at 18:23. Perry's attempted pass from the left circle deflected off the skate of Tkachuk to Paul in front, where he lifted a backhander to the glove side.

“Can’t take any excuses,” Paul said. “We have a team that could go out there and win every single night, so yeah, we just needed to be better in the third.” 

Zetterlund put Ottawa back up 2-1 at 2:45 of the third period when his wrist shot from above the left circle deflected off the right hand of Tampa Bay defenseman Erik Cernak and dipped through the pads of Johansson. Cameron Crotty had the secondary assist for his first NHL point in his fourth game with the Senators.

Sanderson made it 3-1 at 4:39 after skating down the right side and around Lightning defenseman J.J. Moser to the front of the net. Moser hit Sanderson's stick, which caused the puck to come loose and trickle under Johansson's left pad from in tight.

“I think he's, he took some time to get back to this game, which is absolutely normal after you lose that much time, but yeah, he's, even if he's not at 100 percent, he's still obviously a hell of a player and it's great to have him back,” Stutzle said of Sanderson.

Perry cut the deficit to 3-2 at 10:35, redirecting a pass from Ryan McDonagh over Ullmark's blocker from the left of the crease.

“I thought we had a decent start,” Perry said. “We're playing our game, we're moving, we're skating, and then we kind of gave up some odd-man rushes and started trying to do too much, and they took advantage of it.” 

Stutzle pounced on a puck that came loose during a goal-mouth scramble and scored a power-play goal from in front at 12:51 to push the lead to 4-2. 

“It doesn’t matter what team they have, we just try and play our game every night and I think we can stack up against anyone,” Stutzle said. 

Tampa Bay challenged for goaltender interference, but Stutzle’s goal was upheld after video review.

“Bottom line is, we're down by two. There's not a ton of time left in the game, and we weren't getting a ton of opportunities at the time, so I thought they dislodged it," Cooper said. "They didn't. But in the end, you can't give them a breakaway goal what was it six, seven seconds into the power play? So I didn't think that really had an impact on the game.”

On the ensuing power play, Sanderson extended it to 5-2 just 13 seconds later at 13:04. He took a pass from Tkachuk and finished a forehand-backhand deke from in tight for his second goal of the game.

“Teams do it across the League,” Sanderson said. “So just try to catch them off guard and it worked, so it’s kind of nice.” 

Shane Pinto scored a short-handed, empty-net goal at 16:41 to secure the 6-2 final.

“We talk a lot about confidence,” Green said. “Wanting to be in these moments. Our goal isn’t just to make the playoffs, we wanna win the Stanley Cup.” 

NOTES: Tkachuk became the fourth different Senators player in the past decade with multiple four-point games in a single season. The others: Stutzle (twice; most: three games in 2022-23), Batherson (three games in 2021-22) and Erik Karlsson (two games in 2015-16). ... Spence set a new career high for points in a season with 29 (seven goals, 22 assists), besting his previous high of 28 he set during the 2024-25 season. ... Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov extended his point streak to four games (three goals, three assists).