Stutzle scored, and Anton Forsberg made 28 saves for the Senators (25-20-4), who had been shut out in each of their previous two games; they lost 5-0 at the New York Rangers on Tuesday and 2-0 at the Boston Bruins on Thursday.
“We played a team game; stuck with it,” Forsberg said. “We get a bounce there at the end, but good teams get bounces. We stuck with it the whole way. We didn't cheat the game and we came out with a win.”
Bobby McMann scored, and Joseph Woll made 21 saves for Toronto (30-18-2), which has lost two straight.
“It’s a tight game, I think, both teams playing strong defensively and keeping it close,” Woll said. “At the end of the day, it’s an unlucky bounce and that’s the difference.”
Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube said, “[We] defended hard. I thought that the guys dug in. We were physical in puck battles and did a good job. That’s a good team over there. We know that. They’ve got a lot of talent. We’ve just got to stick with it and if you play hockey like that, you’ll win a lot of games. But in the end, we just didn’t score enough.”
McMann gave Toronto a 1-0 lead at 3:46 of the first period. He scored with a wrist shot from the high slot after Marner fed him from below the goal line.
“I think they were maybe sitting back honestly a bit more than usual, kind of letting us come to them,” McMann said. “Usually they’re a little bit more on top of us. I think maybe we forced a few too many plays trying to get behind them there and they were kind of just waiting for us.”
Stutzle tied it 1-1 at 10:43 when he one-timed a Jake Sanderson pass in the right face-off circle during a 4-on-3 power play. The goal ended the Senators’ scoring drought at 147:53.
“We've been in a lot of games like that, where it's, like, 2-1, 1-0,” Stutzle said. “We haven't been scoring a lot, but tonight shows that if we play the right way defensively and just kind of stick with it … There's a lot of times throughout the year where we would have lost those games, but we stuck with it, and got rewarded.”
NOTES: Senators forward Nick Cousins left the game midway through the first period with a lower-body injury following a knee-on-knee collision with Maple Leafs forward Jacob Quillan. Cousins is “going to be out for a while,” Ottawa coach Travis Green said. … The Senators have won four straight against the Maple Leafs dating to Dec. 27, 2023. … Ottawa defenseman Travis Hamonic had two shots on goal in 22:08 of ice time in his return from missing 10 games with a lower-body injury. … Marner has eight assists in his past six games and 53 in 50 games this season. He’s the second player in Toronto history to have 50 or more assists in his first 50 games of a season (Doug Gilmour, twice; 1992-93, 1993-94). … Maple Leafs center Auston Matthews had his five-game goal streak end. … Quillan made his NHL debut, finishing with one hit in 5:21 of ice time.
