Drake Batherson scored three goals and added an assist as the Ottawa Senators beat the New York Rangers 7-4 on Saturday night at Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa. Jake Sanderson scored his first goal of the season for the game winner, and Ottawa survived two Rangers comebacks to improve to 8-4-0 on the season.
The hat trick was the third of Batherson’s career, and it arrived on a fitting night in the building. The Senators handed out rope hats to the first 7,000 fans through the door, and Batherson gave those fans a reason to throw them, even if the final goal of the three took the strangest route of the night.
Ottawa Scores Twice In 66 Seconds
The Senators took control before the game was six minutes old. At 5:34 of the first period, Sanderson skated to the slot and fed Batherson on the wing, and Batherson beat Rangers goaltender Dylan Garand on the blocker side for a 1-0 lead. Just 1:06 later, it was 2-0. Claude Giroux started the rush, Fabian Zetterlund found Tim Stutzle driving to the net, and Stutzle tapped it home at 6:40 for a goal in his third straight game.
Batherson stretched the lead early in the second period. Alone in front at 1:47, he took a quick kick pass from Dylan Cozens and lifted the puck over Garand to make it 3-0. At that point Ottawa had scored on three of its best looks of the night, Garand was under siege in his seventh consecutive start for New York, and the home crowd could feel a runaway coming.
The Rangers Turn A Rout Into A One Goal Game
New York refused the script. Will Cuylle got the Rangers on the board short handed at 10:07 of the second, finishing a two on one break with Luke Glendening. Cozens restored the three goal cushion at 11:21, deflecting a Batherson shot past Garand for his first goal of the season, but the Rangers scored twice before the period ended. J.T. Miller batted in a bouncing puck from an Adam Fox feed at 12:54, and Alexis Lafreniere buried a pass from Miller on a two on one at 19:34, at four on four, to cut the lead to 4-3.
Senators head coach Travis Green pointed to the stretch after the third goal as the moment his team invited the comeback.
We got like five per cent loose or less competitive, and that happens a lot when you get a lead, and it is something you have to guard against, especially against a hardworking team.
That was Green after the game, as reported by Sportsnet. Ottawa was outshot 27-25 on the night and its power play went scoreless in three chances, so the win came from finishing and from goaltending at the right moments rather than from territorial control.
Sanderson Answers Before The Empty Net Finish
The third period swung back and forth until Sanderson settled it. Garand made the first save on a Ridly Greig shot at 13:38, and Sanderson backhanded the rebound home for his first goal of the season and a 5-3 lead. It stood up as the game winner, part of a three point night for the defenseman, who added two assists.
New York pulled within one for a second time at 15:32, when Pavel Dorofeyev one timed a pass from Cuylle past Jonas Johansson for his third goal of the season. Johansson, making his Senators and season debut, held the line from there. He stopped Lafreniere and Gabe Perreault in the final four minutes and turned aside a Mika Zibanejad wrist shot with just over a minute to play.
Michael Amadio scored into the empty net at 18:46, assisted by Sanderson and Johansson, giving the debut goaltender an assist to go with his 23 saves. Batherson then completed the hat trick at 19:48 in the oddest fashion of the night, blocking a Fox point shot and watching the puck travel the length of the ice into the empty net for the 7-4 final. Garand finished with 18 saves for New York.
What The Win Means For Both Clubs
Ottawa has won three of its past five games and improved to 5-2-0 on home ice. Sanderson spoke afterward about the group’s growth, saying the game is never over until it is over and crediting his teammates for not caving when the Rangers pushed in the third period. For a Senators team in its third season under Green, closing out a game that twice threatened to slip away is the kind of result the system is built to produce.
The Rangers leave Ontario with two straight losses, after falling in Toronto earlier on the trip, and they have dropped four of their past five to sit at 7-5-1. J.T. Miller and Will Cuylle each finished with a goal and an assist, and Fox recorded two assists to give him six in his past two games, but New York’s starts remain the problem. The Rangers gave up the first three goals on Saturday and never held a lead.
The Senators play next at Vegas on Tuesday night. The Rangers return home to host Los Angeles on Monday night.
