Brady Tkachuk’s return was long awaited by the Ottawa Senators but happened in a game the team is eager to put behind them — and they will get a chance to do just that on Sunday, the last Western Conference locale on their season-long seven-game road trip.
After leading 2-1 entering the third period against the Blues, the Sens gave up goals to Jordan Kyrou, Matthew Kessel, and Pavel Buchnevich to fall to 3-2-0 entering the sixth game of a seven-game road trip.
The words “immaturity” and “uncharacteristic” were used by the team to describe the loss. The Senators spoke after practicing Saturday afternoon in Dallas about trying to take something from the setback.
“It was a good practice for us,” said Cozens, who called the loss “disappointing,” but that the team is looking forward to bouncing back against the Stars, who the Sens play Sunday evening.
Cozens centred Tkachuk and Fabian Zetterlund on Friday, and the trio led the Sens in even strength deployment with 9:45 time on ice. They created a goal (Zetterlund’s third on the road trip) and created 67.44 per cent of the expected goals for while they were on the ice.
“I liked their line, I thought they had a lot of good looks,” said Travis Green on Saturday. “Obviously, Z gets one, Brady had a lot of touches around the net, I thought ‘Coz’ was a physical force last night.”
Green said Saturday’s practice came at the right time. “Just for the execution in our game [and] puck touches, we hadn’t skated in a while or practiced in a while, and you do tend to lose a little execution in your games if you don’t practice,” said the head coach.
“And not only with your puck touches, but your system play. Like I said last night, uncharacteristic of us, I thought our details were a little sloppy in the third period especially last night and it ended up costing us two points, so it was good to get back on the ice and have a good practice.”
Green added that getting back to a full 60 minutes of execution was top of mind for the Sens, who fell in overtime to the Stars in their first meeting on Nov. 11. “That was really the purpose of today and what we’re hoping to see tomorrow.”
