Recap: Win eludes Senators in Philadelphia

The Senators lost their fourth game in a row on Saturday night after a tough battle with the Flyers in Philadelphia.

The Senators fell 4-2 after a late empty net goal sealed the win for the home team. Claude Giroux kept his point streak against his former team going with his sixth straight point against the Flyers. The point came at on Thomas Chabot’s third period goal and the Senators other goal was a Vladamir Tarasenko backhand goal in the second.

The Senators came very close to tying the game hitting four goal posts in the final four minutes of the third period, but it was not to be for Ottawa.

“I think we had several opportunities in the end, but couldn’t score, explained interim head coach Jacques Martin. “Poor puck management, poor game management. I thought we had a good second period and then with a minute left we gave them two goals.”

Already playing without captain Brady Tkachuk and the NHL goaltending tandem the Senators saw Zack MacEwen leave the game early.

“We started the game with (Erik) Brannstrom up front to replace Tkachuk and we played a man down on a back-to-back,” he added. “That’s not an excuse though it’s the mistakes that cost us the game.”

Once again the Senators fell behind early in the game when Joel Farabee scored his 18^th goal of the season 1:08 into the game.

The Flyers didn’t let up there peppering Mads Søgaard in his 26^th career NHL start. The 23-year-old Dane stood tall making several saves including a cross-crease Frost one-timer to keep the lead to a single goal at the halfway point of the first. The Senators special teams made a statement as well killing off all three first period Flyer power plays.

The shots were lobsided in favour of the home team after fice minutes played by a count of 21-5. The Senators sixth shot found twine when Vladimir Tarasenko took a great pass from Mathieu Joseph and ripped a backhand past Felix Sandstrom.

The second period started with the Senators fighting to balance out the scoring chances and an early power play allowed that to happen, but the score remained tied.

As the period wound down Ottawa had a great chance when Jakob Chychrun put a shot off the crossbar during their second power play of the period with just over six mins left.

On the ensuing play Søgaard made a glove save on Tyson Foerster that bounced on his left and off the crossbar around out of play.

Foerster wouldn’t be denied much longer as he ended with the puck on his stick during a late face-off in the Ottawa zone. He put a knuckler past Søgaard for the lead. The young winger didn’t stop there as he ended up with a breakaway in the final 10 seconds of the period. Søgaard stopped him on his attempt, but a questionable call on Shane Pinto resulted in a penalty shot. Foerster was able to beat the Senators goalie on his second chance to give the Flyers a two-goal lead.

“He's a pretty good shooter so you got to respect it,” Søgaard told the media after the game. “He had a good fake on the way in and I bit and it's an area I can work on and get better at but this is about staying positive and moving on.”

The third period opened with a handful of Senators chances. This pressure lead to some careless defending by Philadelphia which ended up with Chychrun losing a tooth and the Sens gaining a four minute power play. Despite great chances and sustained pressure the Senators couldn’t get one back.

Only six minutes later Giroux took an errant stick to the face for another power play, but again the Flyers defense was too much.

Six minutes after that Joel Farabee ended up in the box to give Ottawa a final power play. Only seconds into the power play a Thomas Chabot point shot hit both posts and stayed out. Only seven seconds after that Dominik Kubalik hit the short-side post as well.

As the penalty wound down and with the Senators net empty for the extra attacker Chabot finally put home a one-timer pass from Claude Giroux.

As soon as the Senators gained the zone again they pulled the goaltender. Hoping to tie the game Chabot once again hit the goal post with 41 seconds remaining. Late in the game the puck got across the Flyers blueline and while Ottawa was regrouping Cam York got a hold of the puck in the neutral zone and scored an empty netter with .6 seconds left.

The injured Senators will have three days to recover before Wednesday’s battle with the Ducks in Anaheim.