Yahoo Sports With A Mouth Full Of Stitches, Brady Tkachuk's Overtime Winner In Calgary Extends Ottawa Senator Win Streak To Five Games
The Ottawa Senators have now won five games in a row, and seven of their last eight, following a 3-2 overtime road win over the Calgary Flames on Thursday night.
Brady Tkachuk scored the game winner, the tenth OT winner of his career, and he did it while playing hurt, as good captains sometimes do. Tkachuk, who chews his mouthguard more than he wears it, lost a tooth and needed nine stitches after Calgary's Mikael Backlund caught him with an accidental stick in the face.
“Don't feel too good. Don't feel too good-looking either, right now. Thank God we got the Christmas pictures done already,” Tkachuk told the TSN broadcast after the game.
“Hopefully it's a lesson learned for everybody to wear their mouthguard.”
Linus Ullmark was excellent once again. Not only has he won seven straight starts, allowing just seven goals in the process, but now he's out here setting up overtime goals. Ullmark had just stopped Jonathan Huberdeau on a two-on-one and instead of freezing the puck, he drew an assist, making a stretch pass to Tim Stutzle for an Ottawa two-on-one.
After Stutzle's shot was stopped, Tkachuk charged the net, as he does, and deflected in the rebound.
COUNT ON CAPTAIN! 😤
Brady Tkachuk nets the @SUBWAYCanada OT winner for the Senators. pic.twitter.com/lS6UK7yrtQ— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) December 20, 2024
Sens head coach Travis Green joked with the team in the room after the game that he had heard Ullmark say before overtime that "the D hadn't made a breakout pass all night, so I'm gonna make one here."
The Sens' bottom six continued to chip in with Nick Cousins and Ridly Greig scoring the other goals. Shane Pinto had just ended his 19 game goal scoring drought last Friday. With Thursday's goal, Greig ended his at 19 games too. If you had told Sens fans that the Sens would be in this position while those two are having such spectacular droughts they wouldn't believe you.
With the win, the Sens continue to hold down wild card two in the East. They're having a hard time gaining ground on the conference leaders, who keep insisting on winning. But they are two points back of the WC1 Boston Bruins – with two games in hand – and also starting to create a little more space between themselves and the teams behind them.
The Senators now have seven more games on the road with three back to back situations still to come on this trip. It will be interesting to see if Leevi Merilainen gets into the act this weekend. The Sens are in Vancouver on Saturday and Edmonton on Sunday.
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