In the opening moments it was "Uh oh, not again" for Robin Lehner and the Ottawa Senators as Zbynek Michalek's fluttering point shot deflected off Marc Methot's glove over the arm of Lehner just 40 seconds in.
But as has been the case, almost inexplicably, for most of the season, the Senators don't tend to get moving until they fall behind. Mike Hoffman evened the score 29 seconds later after a nice forecheck from new linemate Curtis Lazar created a turnover behind the Coyotes net.
Ottawa hung on through much of the rest of the first period, being forced to have 5 power plays including a lengthy 5 on 3. I say that a little bit tongue in cheek but the fact is the play was atrocious with the man advantage. It almost got to the point where Dave Cameron would consider declining penalties in order to not have to watch the Sens power play at work. Instead he did the next best thing and started consecutive power plays with the trio of Jean-Gabriel Pageau, Erik Condra and Chris Neil. And to almost nobody's surprise, that didn't work either.
The Coyotes took the play to the Senators in the early stages of the second period, but Lehner held the fort until the Sens could regain the advantage, and when they finally did, it was an avalanche of celebration as the Senators scored 6 times in the final 26 minutes to chase Mike Smith (5 goals on 20 shots) and then welcome Louis Dominigue to his NHL debut with 2 goals on 11 shots.
Granted, the Coyotes roster is a who's who of no names and cast-offs, but it was nice for Sens fans to see a big number put on the board. It was their biggest offensive output of the season and the newly formed line combinations worked out pretty well to provide balance. All four lines scored at least once, and Karlsson added a goal from the blue liners, to go along with 3 assists from Marc Methot.
While it was a good result and the Senators did some good things, they need about 7 more of those in a row before there will be any realistic discussion of them having any chance of getting back in the playoff hunt. That starts on Tuesday in New Jersey.
It also shows that as inconsistent and frustrating the Sens have been at times this season there are still a number of teams out there that are just downright bad, and the Senators couldn't possibly play bad enough to catch them for the top couple of picks in the draft.