The Ottawa Senators are the hottest team in the league heading into their final game before the NHL’s holiday break on Sunday at the defending Western Conference champion Edmonton Oilers.
The Senators won their sixth straight game on Saturday, a 5-4 decision in overtime at Vancouver to improve to 8-1-0 in their last nine games. They also moved into the Eastern Conference’s final wild-card spot with 38 points.
It marks the first time since March 2-11, 2017 that Ottawa has won six in a row. Not so coincidentally, that’s also the last season that the Senators qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Jake Sanderson scored 15 seconds into overtime to keep the winning streak alive and cap a three-point night that also included two assists. Shane Pinto scored two goals and had an assist, and Leevi Merilainen made 21 saves for his first career NHL win for the Senators.
Ottawa won despite squandering three leads in the contest, the final one on a Brock Boeser goal with 4:50 remaining in the third period to force overtime.
“We were very resilient,” Sanderson said. “We stuck to our guns and got the job done.”
Sanderson broke down the left wing, took a pass from Tim Stutzle and then cut in and beat Kevin Lankinen between the pads for the game-winning goal.
“A gutsy win on our behalf and we’re going to keep it rolling,” Sanderson said.
“It’s nice when you win, it’s nice when you get on a roll and start to feel good,” Ottawa coach Travis Green said. “But you have to reset every game. We didn’t like our game last game (a 3-2 overtime win at Calgary on Thursday). We challenged our group to respond tonight. Real business-like performance by our group today.”
Now the Senators have to quickly reset in less than 24 hours for a game against an Edmonton team that is 10-2-0 over its last 12 games.
The Oilers recorded their second straight 3-2 overtime victory on Saturday, courtesy of Leon Draisaitl’s goal 18 seconds into the extra session versus the San Jose Sharks.
Draisaitl, who leads the NHL with 24 goals, scored his game-winner after Mattias Ekholm tied it with just 18 seconds left in regulation.
“They are always exciting and fun if they go your way,” Draisaitl said of scoring his 17th career overtime winner, a franchise record. “I think we’ve done a good job the last two nights of finding a way to close out a game. … You don’t want to do that every night, but sometimes you need those.”
Edmonton also needed overtime to defeat the Boston Bruins, 3-2, on Thursday on an Ekholm goal.
The Oilers have snatched 14 of a possible 16 points over their last eight games, losing only to the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers during that span. After Sunday’s contest with the Senators, the Oilers will visit southern California for a weekend back-to-back against Los Angeles and Anaheim. Edmonton is one point behind the second-place Kings in the Pacific Division standings.
“Every point’s important, every game’s important,” center Connor McDavid said. “The playoff race, the positioning race is always so tight, every point matters. Even the points in December, these count, too. So, these are games we’ll have to be up for and ready to take care business.”
–Field Level Media