The Ottawa Senators keep showing signs of excellence this season, but simply can’t find any traction. After winning two straight, the Senators have now lost two straight, falling 4-0 in Carolina on Saturday night.
The Senators didn’t have their best stuff early on, but that paled in comparison to the performance of the officiating team.
Sens goalie Anton Forsberg was excellent, keeping Ottawa in the game in the first period. His one mistake was a doozy, though, allowing a Jordan Martinook goal from down below the goal line.
That was the only blemish in the first half of the game and the Sens slowly started getting their legs under them. Midway through the second period, Tim Stutzle appeared to tie the game at 1, but on the backswing of his shot attempt, his stick clipped Andrei Svechnikov’s stick. Svechnikov was backchecking with one hand on his stick and the contact of Stutzle’s backswing knocked the stick out of his hand.
The on-ice officials not only disallowed the goal, but handed Stutzle an interference penalty.
“I think that was a huge part of the game,” head coach Travis Green said after the game. “I really don’t understand how that’s not a goal and how that’s a penalty.”
Then, with under 3 minutes left in the second period, Sens center Shane Pinto got a phantom slashing call that no one understood. It left Pinto laughing at the absurdity of the situation in the penalty box. The call was extra costly because the Sens got dinged for too many men on that penalty kill and Carolina scored once on the 5 on 3 and another on the 5 on 4 that carried over into the third.
In the third period, the Sens did more than enough to get back into the game except that pesky scoring thing. Spencer Martin, who’d played 69 minutes of NHL hockey this season, stopped all 25 shots for his first shutout of his career,
The Senators slip to 8-8-1 and now return home to start a four-game homestand starting Tuesday against the Edmonton Oilers.
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