Sens' Tkachuk: Time to 'show who we are' after comeback win
Ottawa Senators captain Brady Tkachuk hopes his team's 4-3 overtime victory over the Nashville Predators on Monday night can serve as a statement game for his team amid a roller-coaster campaign.
"It's been challenging, it's been hard," he told Sportsnet postgame. "We've just gotta keep finding ways to win hockey games. … It's time for us to show who we are. I think we're going to do that."
The Senators were down 3-0 entering the second period, prompting interim head coach Jacques Martin to replace Mads Sogaard in net with Joonas Korpisalo. Drake Batherson, Tim Stutzle, and Brady Tkachuk then all scored to erase the three-goal deficit.
Batherson said Parker Kelly got the Senators "fired up" with a speech after the opening frame.
"We were pretty frustrated after getting smoked (7-2 to the New York Rangers) last game and coming out in the first and being down 3-zip," he said. "So had to do something, and a couple of the guys spoke up. Obviously, we came out and played a totally different game."
After a scoreless third stanza, veteran forward Claude Giroux netted the overtime winner. The tally marked his fifth career game-winner when down by three goals or more, tied with Glenn Anderson for the most in league history, per NHL PR.
"We showed our maturity from all the lessons that we've had to learn and in the past could've gotten away from us. But we stuck to it, stuck to our game," Tkachuk said. "Really emphasized on doing it as a team versus trying to overdo it individually."
Ottawa has now collected at least one point in six of its last seven games. Martin hailed the comeback as "a great team effort."
"Handling adversity, we've been better. We've also been better at executing, we spend more time in the offensive zone," he said.
The Senators sit in last place in the Atlantic Division with a 19-25-2 record and are 17 points behind the Detroit Red Wings for the second wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference.
Ottawa will face Detroit on Wednesday for its last game before the All-Star break.
"It's a big game," Giroux said. "Where we are in the standings, it's not pretty, but we've just gotta go one game at a time."