Any hope of a late Montreal Canadiens comeback got snuffed out when Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk scored his first of his injury-plagued season so far. The goal closed the scoring midway through the third to make it an eventual 5-2 final. The Canadiens failed to generate anything sustainable in the frame, ultimately going quietly on Tuesday night at the Bell Centre.
Game Recap
On the play, Canadiens forward Brendan Gallagher and Senators defenseman Nick Jensen got tangled up behind the visitor’s net. Gallagher fell to the ice and the crowd called for a penalty, especially with the Habs having notched two power-play goals already in the contest, but no penalty came … until seconds later when Gallagher retaliated as the play went the other way. With a delayed penalty coming Gallagher’s way, Tkachuk took a Tim Stutzle pass in the slot and made no mistake beating Habs goalie Sam Montembeault.
Related: Projected Lineups for Senators vs Canadiens – 12/2/25
The saying goes you need to be lucky to be good and good to be lucky. While Montembeault had a few bright spots, he seemed to be fighting the puck most of the night, which has been a recurring theme in his season’s early going. Overall, in this one, he looked luckier than good, and he can’t have been that lucky giving up five goals on 29 shots. On the whole, he just wasn’t good enough to make up for a team that quit playing defense in the second when Senators forwards Jake Sanderson and Drake Batherson scored within 1:10 of one another, each left relatively untouched to do as they pleased in scoring their respective goals.
Canadiens captain Nick Suzuki replied on the power play a few minutes later, when he scored from the side of the net on goalie Linus Ullmark, who made 19 saves. That was as close as they would get though, on a night that started with such promise when Juraj Slafkovsky scored mere minutes into the contest. However, the Senators answered right back, when Fabian Zetterlund scored on a shot Montembeault probably should have had just 24 seconds later.
Defenseman Artem Zub rounded out the scoring just over 10 minutes later when he took an impressive behind-the-back pass from Tkachuk in front of the net, possessing all the time in the world for all intents and purposes to beat the Montembeault. Another recurring theme.
It was a critical victory over a divisional rival for the Senators, who closed out a seven-game road trip with a 4-3 record. The now-13-9-4 Sens head back home to face the New York Rangers on Thursday. Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the 13-9-3 Canadiens host the struggling Winnipeg Jets, who held a closed-door players’ meeting after their last game. The Habs will notably honour ex-defenseman Andrei Markov before the contest.
