Hard work beat talent… for 40 minutes. The Ottawa Senators dropped a 5-3 decision to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday night, extending Tampa’s winning streak to six games and Ottawa’s losing streak to three games. The Senators held their own with the Lightning through two periods, but allowed Tampa to scored two unanswered goals plus an empty-net marker in the third period to snatch the victory. For a hockey team more focused on draft position than making the playoffs, it was hardly a disastrous outcome.
Here are last night's thumbs:
Thumbs Up: The Team Performance The Lightning are good, and Ottawa was able to hang around against them all night long. That's a huge positive for a team that sits where the Senators do in the standings. The second period, in particular, was expertly maneuvered by the Ottawa skaters. Even when they lose, it's nice to see them play competitive hockey. Fans in attendance certainly saw that on Saturday night.
Thumbs Up: Drake Batherson’s First Point of the Season Drake Batherson wasn’t even supposed to play on Saturday night, but Anthony Duclair’s health forced the organization’s hand and resulted in a call-up from Belleville. The 21-year-old forward immediately delivered, chipping in his first point of the season with a power play assist on J-G Pageau’s 19th of the year.
Recency bias is certainly playing a role here, but adding Batherson to the man-advantage unit made it look as dangerous as it has all year. The way he moved the puck on the way to that Pageau tally was phenomenal; everything flowed through him, and he handled it with ease.
It’s clear that Batherson is playing with a lot more confidence than he was to start the year thanks to his American Hockey League success. In addition to the power play triumphs discussed above, he helped the Sens control more than 60% of the 5v5 shot attempts and generate nearly 60% of the 5v5 expected goals when he was on the ice, per Natural Stat Trick. Overall, it was great night for Batherson. He deserves to stick around. Thumbs Up: J-G Pageau’s 19th Speaking of J-G Pageau – he matched a career high with his 19th goal of the year. It’s crazy to think that he did so on January 4th, but here we are. In terms of timing, Pageau’s offensive outburst couldn’t be better. He’s in a contract year, and is already attracting a lot of attention from teams around the league that might be looking to add a player like him at the deadline.
Even among my Tampa friends and followers on Twitter, there was plenty of chatter after the goal that Pageau would look good in Bolts blue. A 37-goal pace will attract attention like that. Pierre Dorion is going to have an opportunity to cash in with this player.
Thumbs Up: Colin White’s No-Goal How cool was this?
That's a new one. 😂 Colin White's out here playing âš½ï¸.#HockeyNight pic.twitter.com/dho8Te0oT7
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) January 5, 2020
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We’ll hold off on giving thumbs to Mike Reilly until he’s had a chance to get used to DJ Smith’s system. He and the Senators will be back in action on Tuesday against the very dangerous Washington Capitals.
As always, thanks for reading.