Well, good morning, Ottawa. It’s a grey one out there, ain’t it? Kind of fits the mood, I suppose, after last night’s… well, *that*. If you fell asleep after the first period, you had the right idea, eh? Because after Drake Batherson put two in the back of the net to give the Ottawa Senators the lead, things went sideways, as they always seem to against the Montreal Canadiens. The final score, 3-2 for Montreal, feels like a punch in the gut, especially when you outshot them 34-23. The Sens just couldn't seal the deal, letting Juraj Slafkovský get a power play goal early, then giving up a couple more to Alexandre Texier in the second and Ivan Demidov in the third. It was Demidov's goal that really stung, coming in the final frame and putting us behind for good.
You just can't give up leads like that, not when you’re fighting for your life in the standings. Batherson was flying, sure, and you gotta give credit to Brady Tkachuk and Tim Stützle for setting him up, but where was that intensity for the full sixty minutes? It’s not enough to be good in spurts, especially against a rival like the Canadiens. It felt like we were watching the same movie again, a classic Sens plot twist where we get our hopes up, only to have them dashed. You see those Toronto fans at Canadian Tire Centre, all smug in their blue jerseys, and you just want to silence them. But when you play like that in the second and third, you’re just giving them more ammunition, eh?
So, where does this leave us, then? We’re still sitting at 32-23-9, good for 73 points, 6th in the Atlantic, and clinging to that Wildcard #4 spot. Our last ten games have been pretty good, 6-2-2, but this loss breaks the momentum. We needed those two points, desperately, and now we’ve got to regroup. We’re heading into a tough stretch, and every single point matters. You wake up this morning, you grab your coffee, maybe a couple of crispy fries from the Shawarma Palace, and you just think, "Coulda, woulda, shoulda." The mood in Ottawa is definitely a bit deflated, a bit weary, but we’re not out of it, not yet. We never are, are we?
Eleven-eleven, boys. Eleven-eleven.