Senators continue homestand against Islanders

The Ottawa Senators will look to improve to .500 on Saturday afternoon when the New York Islanders come to town.

The Sens are coming off a comeback shootout win over the Kraken on Thursday night, when Linus Ullmark stopped 30 of 33 shots.

Travis Green echoed Ullmark’s postgame sentiment that the Sens need to stick to their process for a full 60 minutes.

“You want to put a 60-minute game together, I don’t think we’ve done it every night,” said Green. “Our game is building, and hopefully we take another step tonight.”

Ullmark will be back between the pipes on Saturday, as the lineup remains the same. The Sens will look for some continuity, and also some early scoring — their opponents have scored the opening goal in each game so far.

Timely saves

Green spoke about the penalty kill again on Saturday morning, which is running at a 55 per cent clip. “We’ve made some mistakes,” said Green.

“We haven’t been aggressive enough, we also haven’t done the simple things well enough that result in goals. It’s a work in progress for sure… I’m confident that we will continue to improve.”

Ullmark came up huge on a kill late midway through the third on Thursday night, keeping the Sens within one and allowing an eventual comeback. “It’s huge,” said Green about the difference a goalie can make shorthanded.

“You can look at analytics all day long,” added Green, alluding to Ullmark keeping high danger chances out of the net.

“The top penalty killing team in the league may not be the best in expected goals against. It’s a fine line between a goal going in [or not], and it’s easy to magnify the penalty kill when it’s not going well, but when you watch other power plays around the league, there’s good scoring chances that occur. Our powerplay gets a good chance a lot of times on the power play, we’ve got to stay confident, we’ve got to stay aggressive, we’ve also got to play smart. The onus also goes onto the players where they’ve got to perform and execute as well, and it’s a combination of us making adjustments and us executing those adjustments as well.”

Loose Pucks

Shane Pinto continued his torrid start to the season, scoring once in regulation time and then scoring the shootout winner to lift the Senators to a 4-3 victory over the Seattle Kraken on Thursday.

Travis Green was drafted by the Islanders 23rd overall in 1989 and played six seasons on Long Island. “Seems like a long time ago, but certain things in your life, you never forget,” said Green, who said he owes the organization a lot.

“It’s still always a special game whenever I play the Islanders,” added Green. He mentioned Butch Goring, Al Arbour, and Lorne Henning as figures who helped shape his career.

Tyler Kleven, drafted 44th overall by the Sens in 2020, will play in his 100th NHL game on Saturday. “He’s growing into a player we envisioned,” said Green. “He’s taken some good steps. When you’re a young defenceman in the league, 100 games really isn’t that much. From 100 to 200 he’s only going to get better.”

Ottawa holds a 58-35-11-7 all-time record against the Isles, who have started the season 1-3. Their first win of the season came Thursday, when they beat the Oilers 4-2 behind a Bo Horvat hat trick.

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