TORONTO -- Losing the opening two games of their first best-of-7 Stanley Cup Playoff series in seven years -- the second defeat 3-2 in overtime to the Toronto Maple Leafs at Scotiabank Arena on Tuesday -- could understandably lead the Ottawa Senators to feel a fog of pessimism creeping in.
But minutes after center Max Domi scored to give the Maple Leafs a 2-0 series lead in the Eastern Conference First Round, Senators captain Brady Tkachuk stood stoic in the visitors locker room, promising that the hands of his embattled crew were steady.
“There’s not one ounce of panic, doubt in this locker room,” Tkachuk said, before declaring again, “Honestly, there’s not one ounce of panic.”
Tkachuk, who scored his first NHL postseason goal Tuesday, is one of 12 Ottawa players experiencing his first trip to the Stanley Cup Playoffs, and the Senators' first since 2017.
“First of all, a lot of our guys haven’t played a lot of playoff hockey,” Ottawa coach Travis Green said. They haven’t lost a playoff game in that way either. We talked about that quickly. I really liked the way we played tonight. Good step for our group. Looking forward to the next game.”
Game 3 is at Canadian Tire Centre on Thursday (7 p.m. ET; CBC, TVAS, SNE, SNO, SNP, ESPN2).
Toronto took a 2-0 lead in the first 8:20 of the game, to goals by defenseman Morgan Rielly and center John Tavares, a similar start to Game 1 on Sunday, when defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson and forward Mitch Marner put the Maple Leafs up by two goals 12:18 into the series.
But whereas Ottawa had previously succumbed to Toronto’s blistering pace and energy and the pressure of the moment in Game 1, leading to a 6-2 loss, it appeared in its second attempt Tuesday, the Senators discovered how to slow the game down, grab momentum and make a meaningful push.
“We didn’t give up and we played our game,” Ottawa defenseman Thomas Chabot said. “We didn’t give them a whole lot, probably the last 40 minutes of the game, and we were in their zone on top of them, which is exactly the way we want to play.”
The Senators outshot the Maple Leafs 13-3 in the second period and Tkachuk cut it to 2-1 at 15:41 when his between-the-legs pass attempt went in off of Toronto defenseman Brandon Carlo’s skate on a power play.
“We just try to make it hard to play against and I think we did that,” Tkachuk said. “I don’t think they had many Grade-A chances; it was a tight-checking game. It comes down to overtime, it comes down to one shot and yeah, things happen. You’re not always going to get the bounces, you’re not always going to [have] the hard work get rewarded. So be it. It’s just going to make it that much sweeter. Move onto the next game.”
In the third, Ottawa's aggressive, persistent forecheck forced an Ekman-Larsson turnover, and seconds later, center Adam Gaudette tipped in a point shot by defenseman Tyler Kleven to tie it 2-2 at 14:47.
“We probably deserved a better fate tonight, but that’s part of playoff hockey,” Green said. “We’ve said it all year -- we don’t get too far ahead of ourselves, we don’t look behind, we worry about the next game, and if you do that, good things happen.”
