The Senators got caught up in a snowball of factors that started rolling downhill against the Flyers, and it ended up resulting in a 3-2 shootout loss. And in this case, it was a lot of little things, some under their control, others not, that made the difference.

From Zack Smith inexplicably going offside on an early game 3-on-1 break, to not being able to get the puck out of the zone given multiple opportunities, finally resulting in an icing that forced a timeout, to an offside goal against that they couldn't challenge because of said icing and timeout, to questionable calls and non-calls, it just meant to be for the Senators.

With the RedBlacks and their Grey Cup in the house, Ottawa got off to a pretty decent start, and Mike Hoffman scored on the power play to give the Senators a lead. Early in the second Ryan Dzingel scored on a weird bounce to make it 2-0, and whether subconsciously or by design, they though that was enough in this one and let the Flyers take over.

Philadelphia started coming in waves and the undermanned Senators couldn't handle it. They were aided by a couple of iffy penalty calls, the first on a slash by Mike Hoffman that was well sold by Shayne Gostisbehere that came just after the Ottawa timeout when they were already on their heels. A missed call against Dion Phaneuf when he was going for a loose puck was followed by a very questionable holding call on Mark Borowiecki, who made the penalty box his second home with 4 minors on the night, rightly or wrongly. Yes, Borowiceki put his hand out on Wayne Simmonds, but he is a pretty strong player at 6'2" and 185 lbs moving at a decent clip and also did a good job of selling it and the officials bought it.

I am not saying they weren't penalties, but what I am saying is that it didn't seem to go both ways. I guess the adage "play well and you earn the penalties" held true, but those sequences really played to the Flyers' advantage and snuffed any chance for Ottawa to regain the momentum.

And then to top it off, the goal by Claude Giroux that broke the ice for the Flyers was off-side, very close but missed by the linesmen, and without a timeout Guy Boucher couldn't challenge the play. A minute later, Michael Del Zotto's seeing eye wrister through traffic beat Mike Condon and it was all even.

Neither team looked interested in winning in the third period, and Ottawa's defensive lapse in overtime allowed Giroux to find some space and Jakub Voracek found him alone for the one timer to end the game.

Ottawa gets a point out of it, and that is probably what they deserved. They didn't play well enough, despite perceived inequality of officiating, after gaining the 2-0 lead, to say they deserved better.

Guy Boucher got a little crazy-eyed during the second period meltdown, but he didn't quite go far enough. In that situation I think he either needs to remain calm and focus on getting his team to play better, or go right off and lay into them, even with enough gusto to get a bench minor. Sure, they would have had to kill off another penalty, but getting some emotion into the game at that point might have lit a spark in a team that seemed to lose its pilot light. Instead, he lost focus on what his team was doing while in a staredown with the officials and before you knew it it was a tie game.

The Senators need to regroup, and before they depart on an incredibly difficult four game road trip they need to come away with a win on Saturday against the Panthers.

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