OTTAWA — In his new role as interim head coach, Jacques Martin is trying to improve many aspects of the Ottawa Senators’ overall game.
He admits, most of the adjustments needed are mental, not physical.
A modest two-game winning streak came screeching to a halt Friday night in front of a disappointed sellout crowd of 20,022. To be blunt, the home team got schooled in this 6-2 victory by the New Jersey Devils.
So much for the idea that Wednesday’s comeback victory over the Maple Leafs in Toronto might spark a bit of a run.
“It is a letdown,” Martin admitted. “I think that’s part of being a professional. This team has a lot of learning to do, not only on the ice but on the mental side of the game.
“I thought we were getting some confidence, playing more to our identity of being a pressure team … and tonight we deviated from that. At the same time, we deviated from our state of mind and if you don’t have the right state of mind, you’re probably not going to be very effective.”
The start was decent.
The Senators opened the scoring midway through the first period, taking advantage of a giveaway in the Devils zone.
Captain Brady Tkachuk accepted the gift and instantly saw Drake Batherson alone in front of Devils goaltender Nico Daws, playing his first game of the season since being called up from the AHL. Batherson, who came into the game with five goals and eight points in his previous six games, patiently outwaited Daws before tucking the puck past him.
That was just after a failed Ottawa power play.
And it was the man advantage that fuelled the Devils’ charge, which figures since New Jersey came into the game as the third-ranked power play unit in the NHL.
Their first opportunities came on two questionable interference calls in the first period — one on Batherson and especially the marginal call on Claude Giroux, at 19:40.
Just 20 seconds to kill, right? Turned out to be one of the longest 20-second stretches of the season. Ottawa had a chance to clear, could not get the puck out, and when Jack Hughes spotted Jesper Bratt across the zone, he whipped the puck to Bratt, whose wrist shot got past Sens goaltender Joonas Korpisalo.
Hughes had already scored a power-play goal during the Batherson minor, pushing a wrist shot through Korpisalo, who tried to squeeze the puck between body and glove, only to feel it trickle on in.
That late goal hurt as they went to the dressing room down a goal. And they never really recovered, the kind of fragility we’ve seen with this group before, under D.J. Smith.
“I think we were frustrated,” Tkachuk said. “I think we were frustrated with a lot of things that we can’t control and it showed, it kind of took over our game. We weren’t the same after that.”
Tkachuk took ownership for his own miss on a breakaway that could have tied the game early in the second period.
“If I score that, then it’s a different game,” Tkachuk said.
Closer, maybe. But there was no excusing the 19 official giveaways by Ottawa in this one.
“One of our biggest problems was our gap between our forwards and our D,” Martin said. “I didn’t think our forwards came back hard enough. A lot of our passes got intercepted because they stepped in.”
“You’re disappointed because I felt the team was heading in the right direction,” Martin said. “Tonight we took a step back. So tomorrow we’ll identify the areas I feel we weren’t good tonight.”
Jacob Bernard-Docker was bang on when he said, “We lost a lot of battles tonight.”
The Devils ran the score to 4-1 with two goals, seven minutes apart in the middle of the second period.
In a goal that is bound to be on Martin’s correctional video, Dawson Mercer won a puck battle against Artem Zub along the boards and then waltzed around Ridly Greig to cut in front of the net and flip the puck to the top corner of the net.
It was a similar story on the next goal — Bratt stripped Vladimir Tarasenko of the puck and slid it across to Tyler Toffoli, all set up for a one-timer blast. Toffoli loves to score goals in Ottawa as he played his junior hockey here for the 67’s and often trained here in the summer.
The score would have been 5-1 after two periods if it were not for a spectacular pad save by Korpisalo on Nico Hischier. When it appeared Hischier had a wide-open net to deposit a backhand, Korpisalo stretched his left leg across the crease to rob the Devils captain.
Not to worry, Devils fans, because after yet another missed power-play opportunity for Ottawa, Hischier sent Brendan Smith in alone as he emerged from the penalty box. Smith made no mistake, deking Korpisalo for the 5-1 advantage.
The Sens got one back on a blast by Bernard-Docker that went in off Smith.
Luke Hughes completed the rout on a short-side shot with less than three minutes to play.
Bratt led the Devils with a goal and three assists. New Jersey outshot Ottawa 30-27.
The Senators have one more game at home to close out 2023 on Sunday against the Buffalo Sabres before heading out on a western swing.
Jenner and fellow captains drop the puck
Before the game, Ottawa’s PWHL team named its captains, and they were introduced to the sellout crowd following the anthems.
Brianne Jenner, MVP of the Canadian team at the 2022 Olympics, was a pretty obvious choice to wear the C for Ottawa’s team, which begins play on Tuesday.
Joining her at centre ice to drop the ceremonial puck were alternate captains Emily Clark and Jincy Roese. Roese, who hails from O’Fallon, Mo., had a chat at centre ice with fellow Missouri resident Tkachuk.
