The Ottawa Senators will try to start another point streak when they host the Anaheim Ducks on Saturday afternoon.
The Senators are coming off a 3-2 loss to the visiting Montreal Canadiens in the opener of a three-game homestand on Wednesday.
Ottawa had a 2-1 lead after the first period but was shut out the rest of the way by rookie goaltender Jacob Fowler.
“The margins are so tight at this time of year,” Senators forward Drake Batherson said. “It gets tougher to score and tougher to win games.”
The loss ended a seven-game point streak (5-0-2) that helped keep the Senators on the bubble of an Eastern Conference playoff spot.
“We know it was a big game,” Ottawa forward Tim Stutzle said. “Did we play our best? Probably not. Should we have got a point? Probably. So tough one there, got to move on.”
Ottawa was coming off a five-game road trip in which it went 4-0-1.
“We don’t get to pick and choose the ones that we win,” Ottawa coach Travis Green said. “We’re going to lose another game before the end of the year, too, so we don’t sit there and say we have to beat Montreal, and we can afford to lose against Calgary. We played a real good game (against the Canadiens), coming off a long road trip, and we’ve just got to worry about ourselves.”
The Ducks still lead the Pacific Division with 17 games left, inching closer and closer to clinching their first playoff spot in eight years.
They absorbed a disappointing loss on Thursday, however, giving up a 3-1 lead in a 6-4 road loss against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Ducks gave up three straight power-play goals, and another short-handed, after taking the two-goal lead. The final two goals came after defenseman Radko Gudas was given a five-minute major for kneeing Auston Matthews, which knocked him out of the game with a lower-body injury. Gudas faces a disciplinary hearing Friday.
“It’s a disappointing loss because we were trying to build off last game and we did it perfectly for the first period and a half,” Anaheim coach Joel Quenneville said. “We had basically a game and a half where we were doing everything right. We had possession, momentum and pace.”
Ducks forward Cutter Gauthier scored another goal on Thursday to give him a team-high 33 on the season and seven in the past seven games.
Alex Killorn has scored in back-to-back games for Anaheim to give the 14-year veteran his 13th straight season with double-digit goals.
Ducks defenseman John Carlson is expected to make his team debut either Saturday against the Senators or Sunday at Montreal. He was acquired in a surprising trade-deadline deal on March 5 and has yet to play because of a lingering lower-body injury.
With the back-to-back set, the Ducks will likely start each of their goalies.
Lukas Dostal is 2-1-0 in four career appearances against the Senators with a 9.32 save percentage and 2.35 goals-against average, while Ville Husso is 2-3-0 in five career appearances against Ottawa with an .881 save percentage and 3.42 GAA.
