Recap: Senators can't solve the Panthers

The Senators were shut out for the third time this season as they fell to the Florida Panthers 2-0 on Tuesday.

“I thought it was a hard fought game out there,” said interim head coach Jacques Martin. “There wasn’t a lot of time or space out there and I think a couple mistakes that cost us goals in the first period.”

The Senators were able to avoid the pitfall of being scored on in early in the game and actually had the first major scoring chances when Zach MacKewn and Dominik Kubalik were both stopped before the five minute mark of the first period.

However, Panthers were able to strike first near the end of a power play when Anton Lundell took a stretch pass from Anthony Stolarz and gave Florida the lead. Just two and a half minutes later Nick Cousins ended a long shift in the Senators zone with his seventh of the year to give the Panthers a two goal lead.

“I think it was a tough game and just one or two mental errors and they are a good enough team to capitalize,” explained Jacob Bernard-Docker who skated in his 100th career NHL game.

To start the second the Senators had perhaps their best chance of the period when Thomas Chabot rang a seeing-eye wrister off the right goal post, but it bounced harmlessly wide of the net.

The second period didn’t yield much in the way of scoring chances as both theams combined for a total of eight shots.

“We gave them two early, but other than those two goals, I think we answered back and had a really strong second period,” said Sens forward Parker Kelly. “They area a great team and they stayed on top of us and didn’t give us much.”

To start the third period Sam Reinhart and Aleksander Barkov were both stopped by Joonas Korpisalo on a two-on-one to keep the Florida lead to just two goals.

The saves were two of his 13 even strength saves on the night with nearly the other half of the 30 coming on the five Panther power plays.

As the period wound down the Senators pulled the goalie for an extra attacker with just under three minutes remaining, but couldn’t convert. The pressure took a major hit when the Senators were penalized with just over two minutes left in the game. Despite the challenge they were still able to get some quality chances on Stolarz but in the end to no avail.

“With some skilled players out of the line-up we have got to grind and hopefully get some more shorts to the net and get some rebounds,” added Martin. “To their credit the block a lot of shots and they don’t give you much time.”

The Senators travelled to Tampa for Thursday’s game and will be on the practice ice tomorrow at 11:30 am. This is before heading back to Ottawa to take on the Canadiens in the final home game of the 2023-24 season.