Tkachuk scores 1st goal of season, Senators defeat Canadiens

MONTREAL -- Brady Tkachuk scored his first goal of the season, and the Ottawa Senators scored four straight times in a 5-2 win against the Montreal Canadiens at Bell Centre on Tuesday.

The Ottawa captain made it 5-2 at 12:43 of the third period with a snap shot past Sam Montembeault. He was playing in his third game after missing 20 with a broken right thumb.

“A massive win, you know, it’s a four-point swing, these types of games,” Tkachuk said. “And usually these big games are after a bye week, but with how close everything is it’s as important in early December. So we came in with a mindset that the last game of the road trip we wanted to get this road trip on an over .500 record and that would be a successful road trip, so it was a great game by absolutely everybody on the team.”

Tkachuk also had an assist, and Fabian Zetterlund had a goal and an assist for Ottawa (13-9-4), which had lost consecutive games but finished its seven-game road trip 4-3-0. Linus Ullmark made 19 saves.

“I thought that was one of (Zetterlund)’s best games in a while,” Senators coach Travis Green said. “I thought the whole line was very good tonight. We had a lot of good players tonight.”

Nick Suzuki had a goal and an assist, Cole Caufield had two assists, and Montembeault made 24 saves for Montreal (13-9-3), which was coming off a 7-2 loss at the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday.

“Our whole ‘D’ zone today was lack of maybe effort or being ready to go, but I’m tired of losing due to ‘D’ zone 1-on-1 battles,” Caufield said. “I mean, you’ve got to find your guy and you’ve got to win that battle and keep him on the outside and do your job. I think most of their goals came off our mistakes and our issues with not picking guys up, and it’s unacceptable.

“We’ve got to be a lot better than that, and if we do that, we find ourselves in a closer game tonight.”

Juraj Slafkovsky gave Montreal a 1-0 lead on a power play at 3:37 of the first period. He drove to the right edge of the crease and put Caufield’s pass across the goalmouth inside the right post.

Zetterlund tied it 1-1 with a slap shot from the point just 24 seconds after Slafkovsky scored.

“Of course it’s huge,” Zetterlund said. “We don’t want them to get momentum and to get that one was nice for my grandmother. She passed away a couple of days ago, so yeah, it was nice, it was for her.”

Artem Zub put Ottawa up 2-1 at 16:53 with a snap shot from in close.

Jake Sanderson made it 3-1 at 5:48 of the second period. The Senators defenseman drove along the goal line from the left side and scored on a backhand inside the far post.

Drake Batherson pushed it to 4-1 at 6:58 when he curled the puck around Montembeault’s pad for Ottawa’s fourth straight goal.

Suzuki cut it to 4-2 at 8:50 with a power-play goal, snapping a shot over Ullmark from low in the left face-off circle.

“There’s definitely some mental mistakes which cost us tonight,” Suzuki said. “When you play man on man you can’t really do that. Guys were worried about their guy, and we let stuff kind of slip around us and get in open spots. So it’s definitely been a concern, but I don’t think we’re going backwards.”

NOTES: Suzuki has nine points (four goals, five assists) on a six-game point streak. … Caufield has 10 points (two goals, eight assists) on an eight-game point streak. … Slafkovsky scored his 50th goal in 225 NHL games with Montreal. The No. 1 pick in the 2022 NHL Draft is the third player in NHL history born and trained in Slovakia to score 50 career goals at age 21 or younger, joining Marian Gaborik (84) and Marian Hossa (62). … Senators forward David Perron, who had an assist on Tkachuk’s goal, was playing in his 1,200th NHL game. … Tkachuk has 410 points, tying Wade Redden for fifth in Senators history. Daniel Alfredsson is Ottawa’s all-time leader with 1,108, followed by Jason Spezza (687), Erik Karlsson (518) and Alexei Yashin (491).