OTTAWA, ON — Brady Tkachuk scored 25 seconds into overtime, and the Ottawa Senators beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-4 on Wednesday night.
Alex DeBrincat, Tim Stutzle, Drake Batherson and Shane Pinto also scored for Ottawa (20-21-3), which went 4 for 9 on the power play. Tkachuk also had three assists, and Cam Talbot stopped 16 shots.
Senators coach D.J. Smith said he thought the team's power-play units "were a little quicker tonight.”
“I think of late we’ve been a little bit slow," he said. “I think we were too deliberate and then when you score one early it just seems to go a little bit better and we’ve got good players.”
Evgeni Malkin had a goal and two assists for Pittsburgh (22-15-7), and Sidney Crosby had three assists. Jason Zucker, Mark Friedman and Rickard Rakell also scored, and Casey DeSmith made 35 saves.
“It’s pretty tough to assess a game like that when half of the game is special teams,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. “There was no flow to it, there was no 5-on-5. It was ridiculous.
“Let’s just say I question a fair amount of the calls.”
DeSmith praised the Senators for the challenges they presented in front of him.
“They’re a great net-front team, a lot of big bodies and they’re hungry,” he said. “They go to the front of the net.
“They did a good job with that. They got a lot of pucks tipped, deflections, stuff like that.”
Tied 3-3 in the third period, the Senators scored their fourth power-play goal at 10:58 when Pinto beat DeSmith with a wrist shot.
It was Pinto’s first goal in 15 games.
“It’s been a little bit for me so just to get the monkey off my back is nice, so I’m pretty happy,” he said.
Rakell replied with a power-play goal of his own at 12:33. It was his 16th of the season.
Friedman gave Pittsburgh a 3-2 lead when he beat Talbot with a long-range shot 3:07 into the second period. It was Friedman's first goal of the season and No. 4 in 49 career NHL games.
Batherson then tied it again with his 14th at 9:19 of the second. Tkachuk set up the goal with a backhand pass in front for Batherson.
Malkin tied it at 2 when he jammed home a rebound from a Ty Smith point shot 15:23 into the opening frame.
Earlier in the period, Ottawa made the most of a double minor penalty against Jeff Carter, scoring twice. Stutzle skated around Crosby and scored his 20th of the season at 9:44. DeBrincat tied the game two minutes prior on a feed from Batherson.
WORTH NOTING
Josh Norris returned to Ottawa's lineup after missing 38 games with a shoulder injury. It marked his first time back in the lineup since Oct. 22. ... Senators forward Mathieu Joseph, who missed 17 games with a lower-body injury, was a healthy scratch. Joseph’s brother, Pierre-Olivier, plays for the Penguins and expected more than 50 friends and family to be in attendance.
UP NEXT
The Penguins host the Senators on Friday night.
