As the saying goes, the Ottawa Senators have made their bed, and now they have to lay in it.
Ottawa had a chance to all but lock up a playoff spot on Monday night but instead came up short against Tomas Vokoun and the Pittsburgh Penguins by a 3-1 final. To make things worse, the 9th place Winnipeg Jets picked up another two points and have all but erased the Sens playoff cushion in the Eastern Conference.
The Winnipeg Jets, the only team left that can steal a playoff spot from the Senators, scored a 2-1 victory against the Buffalo Sabres. With the win, the Jets are now just a single point back of the 8th place Senators. Winnipeg has just two games left including a huge game in Washington tomorrow night.
They wrap up their regular season against the Habs on Thursday night.
Plenty of revenge talk heading into this one as people wondered if the Senators would be out for revenge against Matt Cooke. On his first shift of the game, Cooke was predictably met by Sens tough guy Chris Neil but not surprisingly, passed on the opportunity to settle the score. There are a lot of players in this league that would have answered the bell and dropped the gloves there.
Matt Cooke is not one of those players.
Reality is the Paul MacLean's team had more important things to worry about tonight and they just couldn't get it done.
The Penguins opened the scoring in the first period as Dustin Jeffrey one timed a Brendan Morrow pass through Craig Anderson. A few minutes later, it was Morrow again spotting Jarome Iginla on the backside to give the Penguins a 2-0 lead at the ten minute mark of the opening period. Despite holding a 14-9 edge on the shot clock, the Sens really didn't have a ton of jump in the opening 20.
Not much better in the second either as much like on Saturday night, the Senators continued to put pucks on net but couldn't get those second and third opportunities that so often lead to goals. Just not enough "net drive" as they say.
In the third period, Patrick Wiercioch finally got the Senators on the board as he ripped a point shot that beat Vokoun giving the Sens some life with about 12 minutes left on the clock. The Sens failed to generate much after that though and with just over two minutes to play, Tyler Kennedy beat Anderson from in tight to put the game away.
The Senators now have a couple days off with their next game coming on Thursday night when Ottawa visits Alex Ovechkin and the Washington Capitals.
Gotta think Erik Karlsson will be pushing hard to return for that game with his team in such a desperate situation.
