Ottawa Senators defenceman Jakob Chychrun gave full credit to the Anaheim Ducks Thursday night.
Mason McTavish scored two goals in leading the Ducks to a 5-1 victory and snapping the Senators' four-game winning streak.
“It just seemed like we were disconnected all over the ice and they played well,” Chychrun said. “So, they definitely deserve that one and we did not.”
The Ducks (19-32-2) were coming off an ugly 5-0 loss to Montreal and were determined to redeem themselves.
“We were pretty bad (in Montreal), really bad actually,” McTavish said. “I thought we played a lot better today and it was a good response.”
McTavish, who grew up down the road from the Canadian Tire Centre, had plenty of friends and family cheering him on and didn’t disappoint. In addition to having an impact on the scoresheet, McTavish was physical and made his presence known all game.
“He’s a real honest self-evaluator,” Ducks coach Greg Cronin said. “He had a really, kind of tough game (Tuesday) and I know (general manager) Pat Verbeek talked to him after the game in terms of how he had to play to have an identity during the course of a game.
"He’s a big, thick kid, he’s 210 pounds and he shouldn’t be invisible in any game and that was the message Pat gave him. I thought he was really good tonight.”
Frank Vatrano, Pavel Mintyukov and Cam Fowler also scored for Anaheim. John Gibson stopped all 15 shots he faced through two periods, while Lukas Dostal made 18 saves in relief in the third period.
Dostal stepped in for Gibson to start the third period after Gibson exited with an upper-body injury. Gibson was run over by Senators forward Drake Batherson and Ducks defenceman Ilya Lyubushkin early in the second period and was knocked over a second time later in the frame.
There was no update on his status following the game.
Claude Giroux had the lone goal for Ottawa (22-26-2). Joonas Korpisalo made 15 saves.
“It’s frustrating to have this effort tonight,” Giroux said. “We’ve been playing some really good hockey lately. I know it happens sometimes in a season that you have a flat game like this, but with the position we’re in right now, it’s unacceptable.”
Before the game, Senators interim coach Jacques Martin spoke about being impressed with his team's ability to play a more complete game and weather the ups and downs. He may have wanted to retract those comments following Thursday's performance.
“I just didn’t think our compete level was high enough,” Martin said. “But give them credit, they outworked us, they worked hard, they were on the puck. We didn’t have time and space.
"It’s a team that obviously, they had lost badly the last game, had a hard practice yesterday and they got the message. We had a good stretch going, so I think that we’ve just got to regroup.”
McTavish scored his second of the night 2:18 into the third after Troy Terry deked Thomas Chabot and found McTavish at the side of the net to make it 4-0.
Giroux got the Senators on the board at 4:43 of the third after stealing the puck and beating Dostal blocker side with a wrister.
Fowler made it 5-1 at 9:23 of the frame with a power-play goal. With an assist on the play, his second of the night, Vatrano tied his career high of 41 points (23 goals, 18 assists), that he set last year.
Anaheim tripled its lead in the second period.
Vatrano made it a 2-0 game when he scored a power-play goal off a one-timer with 2:35 remaining. McTavish followed that up by beating Korpisalo far corner for his 14th of the season with 1:01 left in the frame.
The Ducks opened the scoring with Mintyukov scoring on a Terry rebound at 9:19 of the first.
NOTES
Ottawa defencemen Jake Sanderson and Artem Zub are both out with lower-body injuries. Defenceman Max Guenette was an emergency recall.
UP NEXT
Ottawa heads to Chicago to face the Blackhawks on Saturday.
Anaheim travels to Toronto to take on the Maple Leafs on Saturday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 15, 2024.
Lisa Wallace, The Canadian Press
