Don’t count Senators out of playoff race just yet

Say this for the Ottawa Senators. 

They refuse to go quietly into that good night. 

Arithmetic is not in their favour, as far as catching one of the wild-card teams in the Eastern Conference, but the Senators continue to hang around in the playoff race.

Ottawa fans sipped their morning coffee to the realization their team was just four points back of Florida and five behind Pittsburgh in pursuit of the second wild-card spot. The Panthers and Penguins both lost on Thursday. The New York Islanders hold down the first wild card with 82 points, seven ahead of the Senators, who have 10 games left to play.

On Thursday night, the Sens put up a seven spot against the Tampa Bay Lightning, the erstwhile Stanley Cup champs trying to rediscover their magic. The 7-2 final was something few expected.

“We clearly got some bounces,” said Senators head coach D.J. Smith. “We haven’t scored first a ton — a lot of games we’ve just been grinding and squeezing. Tonight, a couple went in and we played with a lot of confidence.” 

Tampa had some early chances and couldn’t get a bounce, but the Bolts soon found themselves chasing the game after a couple of quick goals by Alex DeBrincat.

DeBrincat, mired in a March slump, broke out with his first goal in seven games off a pass from Drake Batherson on a two-on-one in the first period. DeBrincat’s low shot trickled in off the pads of Brian Elliott, the former Senators goaltender who backs up Andrei Vasilevskiy.  

When goal scorers warm up, they are dangerous.  Buoyed by the confidence from that foray, DeBrincat returned three minutes later on a one-on-one play, stopped up, spun around and flipped a backhand shot over Elliott’s glove hand. 

“I just decided to pull up and try to get it by him,” DeBrincat said. “Like I’ve been saying, sometimes those go in and sometimes they hit a stick or whatever . . . I was lucky enough to get it in today.” 

Stop us if you’ve heard this before, but the ‘Cat’ is back. DeBrincat won’t reach the 40-goal plateau this season, as he did twice with the Chicago Blackhawks, but these were goals 22 and 23. Rewards for DeBrincat having his legs early in this game. 

When the period ended, the PA staff at the Canadian Tire Centre alertly played Ted Nugent’s Cat Scratch Fever. 

DeBrincat scoring is nearly always a great omen for Ottawa. The team is 17-1-1 in games in which he scores. He had no idea. 

“I guess I gotta score more,” DeBrincat said. 

His coach was pleased to see DeBrincat finally have some production after a lot of tough luck. 

“You know, good for him,” Smith said. “He’s had so many (cross)bars, and he’s trying. They earned those chances early, they tracked and they created turnovers.” 

By ‘they,’ Smith was referring to DeBrincat’s line with Shane Pinto and Drake Batherson. Batherson, fully healed now from a lingering high ankle sprain, has been one of Ottawa’s best forwards recently. 

The Senators went back with Mads Sogaard as their starter in net, showing confidence in him after his strong game against the Boston Bruins on Tuesday — a 2-1 loss. The other option was newcomer Dylan Ferguson, who made 48 saves in a 2-1 win over Pittsburgh on Monday, but he was ill after his first NHL start, with suspected dehydration. 

Sogaard, 22, looked comfortable while keeping the Bolts under control. He was especially sharp anticipating Lightning plays, getting into position to defend cross-ice passes. 

“I made a couple of clean saves early on and it gave me some confidence,” Sogaard said. 

Tampa put on a push to open the second period and Brayden Point got one past him to pull the Lightning to within one at 2-1. 

Not for long. A power-play goal by Derick Brassard restored the Senators' two-goal lead. 

The Lightning got to within one goal again in the third period, and the Sens just as quickly got their two-goal lead back once more. Erik Brannstrom brought fans out of their seats with an end-to-end rush before firing a shot that beat Elliott high to the stick side. 

It was Brannstrom’s second goal of the season and fourth of his career. 

Captain Brady Tkachuk added a power-play goal later in the third period. And the Lightning, despite trailing 5-2, pulled their goalie for an extra attacker, which gave Tkachuk an easy empty netter after some heavy lifting by Tim Stützle. 

Austin Watson completed the rout with a backhand goal to make it 7-2 with 5:21 remaining. Thirteen Senators figured in on the scoring. 

Solid defence pairings

The Senators continue to experiment with their bounty of riches on the blueline. On the same day the organization signed prospect Tyler Kleven to an entry-level contract, Smith rolled out a defensive pairing that had Thomas Chabot with newly acquired Jakob Chychrun. 

Chabot looked quite at ease playing on the right side. Chychrun, not happy with a slew foot from Victor Hedman, was both effective and feisty, despite having to deal with a root canal procedure on the morning of the game. 

“That was a first,” Chabot said of playing with a D-partner fresh off root canal surgery. The veteran Chabot said he’d been looking forward to playing alongside Chychrun, even if they are both left-hand shots. There was some switching back and forth as the play evolved. 

“Obviously we’re both more comfortable on the left side, but like you saw a few times (Thursday), you kind of just fill in depending on where the other guy is,” Chabot said. “We kind of manage that. I haven’t played a lot of right side, but we talk about it, get a lot of reps and kind of just go with the flow, I guess.”

Jake Sanderson, who has emerged as Ottawa’s top defenceman, started the game alongside Artem Zub. That left Erik Brannstrom and Travis Hamonic to form a solid third pair. 

Smith was pleased with the work of all his pairs. 

“I thought they were jumping, they were snapping pucks,” Smith said of the Chabot-Chychrun tandem. “We’re going to need them to defend, obviously, but also get up in the rush and make plays. 

“That Zub-Sanderson pair continues to work against the other team’s top line, Hammer does what he does on the penalty kill. But I thought maybe our best defenceman was Brannstrom.”

Brannstrom showed up for his post-game scrum wearing large ice packs on both knees to treat shot-block bruises — proof that the slight defenceman is playing an all-around game. 

The Senators skate Friday before heading to New Jersey for a game with the Devils on Saturday. If the Sens win that one, it sets up a dramatic meeting in Ottawa on Monday when the Florida Panthers visit.