“It’s a lot of fun. That’s the kind of mentality that I’ve always had, and I hope that everyone else has,” Ullmark said. “It’s fun playing the best in the world. You have that little extra motivation, especially when you come here at home, and you play such a dangerous team offensively. You know there’s going to be a good challenge.”
Ullmark stopped Brandon Hagel on a short-handed breakaway to keep it 2-1 at 5:58 of the third period. He then made a right shoulder save on Anthony Cirelli on a 2-on-1 rush on the same power play 16 seconds later.
“‘Ully’ made some huge saves for us,” Ottawa forward Shane Pinto said. “If we don’t have him there, we don’t win that game. That’s the type of goalie he is, and I’m just happy we have him on our side.”
Ridly Greig had two assists and Pinto and Jake Sanderson each scored for the Senators (40-29-6), who were without captain Brady Tkachuk (upper body) for the second consecutive game.
The Senators remained five points ahead of the Montreal Canadiens for the first wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference. The Canadiens won 4-1 against the Boston Bruins on Thursday.
“Obviously, at this time of year, there’s going to be some close games, and you’ve got to be comfortable playing in them,” Ottawa coach Travis Green said. “I thought we looked comfortable tonight.”
Hagel scored and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 17 saves for the Lightning (44-26-5), who had an opportunity to clinch a berth into the playoffs with a win.
“Ultimately, do I think we played well enough to get points out of that game? There’s no question,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “We had our chances. We had multiple breakaways, odd-man rushes, we had unreal looks. In the end, pucks had eyes for us the last few weeks, and tonight they didn’t.”
The Lightning are three points behind the Toronto Maple Leafs for first place in the Atlantic Division.
“We had our looks,” Tampa Bay forward Yanni Gourde said. “I thought overall we played pretty good. We got our chances. We missed a couple; I missed one on the back door there. We had good looks.”
Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov, who had a game-high seven shots, had his nine-game point streak ended. He had 19 points (five goals, 14 assists) during the stretch.
“There’s a reason why he puts up 100 points a season,” Ullmark said. “It’s not a fluke. … You’ve got to have the same mentality against everyone like this: Kucherov, [Connor] McDavid, [Nathan] MacKinnon. Like, you’ve got to give them as little time as possible. The problem with [Kucherov], though, is that he can do whatever he wants on backhand and forehand, so you have to honor him in a way that, even though you might put him on his backhand, that pass will still arrive at the other side.”
Pinto gave Ottawa a 1-0 lead at 13:45 of the first period when he took a drop pass from Greig on the rush and beat Vasilevskiy with a wrist shot under the glove from the middle of the slot.
“They’ve kind of been our go-to line all year when it comes to matchups,” Green said of the line of Pinto, Greig and Michael Amadio. “I think they take pride in it. They’re all capable of it. They all bring different elements to the game, and I thought they were outstanding tonight.”
