Playing their third game in four nights, the Ottawa Senators looked flat against their provincial rivals, dropping a 3-1 decision the Leafs at SBP.
The Sens loss, coupled with a Bruins win earlier in the afternoon means that the Senators slide back into the 7th position in the Eastern Conference, six points clear of the Washington Capitals and eight up on the ninth place Winnipeg Jets.
Ottawa never really seemed to have their skating legs last night and made life pretty easy for the Leafs defence. To Toronto's credit, they did a fantastic job getting in shooting lanes and forcing Ottawa into deperate attempts on goal. This is an issue that has reached near epidemic levels for the Sens as both Montreal and Toronto blocked a ton of shots.
After going 0/9 on Friday night, the Sens power play struglled again, ending up goaless in three attempts. You have to think this is something Paul MacLean will focus on leading up to Tuesday's game.
It's hard to fault Ben Bishop last night but with Craig Anderson close to a return (perhaps by next weekend) I think it may be time to give Robin Lehner one more look. Has nothing to do with Bishop who has looked solid in his six starts but it's more about giving Lehner another opportunity to prove what he can do. We'll see what Murray and MacLean decide to do in the coming days.
While the product on the ice was pretty ugly, some of the action in the stands was even worse.
I guess it was to be expected but last night was another heated chapter in the Leafs/Sens rivalry off the ice. Speaking from my experience only, I can say that some of the Leaf fans I encountered were reasonable people that were just there to watch a hockey game. But as you would expect from a Saturday night, St. Patrick's Day crowd, there were also a number of guys (fans of both teams) there just to start trouble.
Full credit to the ushers and secuirty in the building for defusing a couple of incidents that could have turned ugly in a hurry.
There's no time for the Sens to dwell on this loss as they have another pivotal game coming up on Tuesday night when they host the New Jersey Devils. Ottawa then has a couple days off before closing out the week with back to back games on Friday and Saturday against the Canadiens and Penguins.
