Senators Drop Second to Lightning

It was another tough outing as the Ottawa Senators battled hard but fell to the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-1. The second straight meeting between the two teams, Michael Amadio scored the lone goal for the Senators.

Scoring opened halfway through the first period at 9:22 when forward Jake Guentzel scored his 22nd goal of the season on the power play to give them a 1-0 lead.

The rest of the opening period was scoreless and the Senators headed into the first intermission down by one. The Lightning held the edge in shots with 10 to the Senators’ seven, while the Sens had the edge in face-off wins with 57%.

The Senators got one back just over five minutes into the second period at 5:27, when Michael Amadio buried his fifth goal of the season to tie it up at 1-1. Tim Stützle and Thomas Chabot both picked up assists on the goal.

With 9:46 to play in the second period, the Lightning regained their lead at 2-1 when Brandon Hagel scored his 24th goal of the season.

Neither team scored in the remaining half of the second period, and the Senators headed into the second intermission down by one once more.

The third period was scoreless for the majority of play, but the Lightning struck again at 15:44 to extend their lead to 3-1. Scoring the goal was Brayden Point with his 29th goal of the season.

The Senators pulled the goaltender for the extra attacker to try and get back within one, but the Lightning capitalized and scored into the empty net to make it 4-1. It was Erik Cernak with his first goal of the year to get the insurance.

Less than a minute later with just over 30 seconds remaining in the game, Mitchell Chaffee scored his 10th goal of the season to make it 5-1 in favour of the Lightning.

Nothing else happened in the dying seconds of play, and the Senators fell by a score of 5-1. The team will return to play on Saturday in their final game before the 4 Nations Face-Off break. They will take on the Florida Panthers for the second time this season, with puck drop set for 7:00 p.m. ET.

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