Ottawa should be closer to the playoffs, but they’ve wasted points in losses to Buffalo

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OTTAWA — When you check out colleague Dom Luszczyszyn’s playoff chances model on Tuesday morning, the Ottawa Senators’ playoff chances should still be near 100 percent. They’ve rightfully earned the playoff cushion they’ve built so late in the season.

But this year’s Senators will have to enter the postseason with an ugly blemish on their regular-season record: four losses at the hands of the lowly Buffalo Sabres. Or maybe not so lowly now: the Sabres’ 5-2 win over the Senators on Tuesday night helped them leapfrog the Boston Bruins from the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings.

“You don’t want to lose four times to a team in your conference,” Senators defenceman Jake Sanderson said. “It was a tough pill to swallow.”

Tuesday night’s loss — not an April Fool’s joke by any means — was their second to Buffalo in a week, a “frustrating” end to their season series as the Senators seek to make the playoffs for the first time since 2017 and allow their fans to breathe a long sigh of relief in the process.

Avert your eyes if you don’t want to feel worse: If you count up all the goals in all four matchups this year, Buffalo is up 17-5 on aggregate.

“It’s a funny league,” Senators forward Claude Giroux said.

So, why are the Sabres giving them so much trouble? Is it their pace? Strong goaltending performances being countered by below-standard goaltending for Ottawa? The Senators’ own mistakes costing them while failing to capitalize on their own? The Senators experienced all that on Tuesday night at the Canadian Tire Centre.

“It’s pretty apparent we’ve struggled to play against them this year,” Sanderson said. “I don’t know if it’s the way they play. Just that run-and-gun type of game, high-skill or whatnot. But we’ve got to figure it out.”

Senators head coach Travis Green felt his team played with a high urgency level on Tuesday. He wasn’t completely off-base to say that: The Senators dominated at five-on-five and in high-danger chances, but they just couldn’t break the dam behind Sabres goalie James Reimer.

“If you’re going to criticize the first period,” Green added, “it’s easy to say no urgency, (but) we outchanced the (Sabres) two to one in the first.”

Contrary to Green’s belief, there were lulls in the Sens’ play in the first and second periods where they failed to strike back. Buffalo was outshot, but when they had their chances, they made the most of them. Tage Thompson’s second-period give-and-go with JJ Peterka was practically back-breaking. Ottawa responded just over a minute later but didn’t threaten sufficiently. Ottawa’s power play finished 0-for-4 in the loss, including three lost power-play chances in the first period.

Not sure what’s better, the move or the pass on this Tage Thompson goal 😳 pic.twitter.com/uxGDTr1oym

— NHL (@NHL) April 2, 2025

“You get three power plays, you’re hoping to get one,” Green said. “I thought they got a little momentum off their kill. The way we play the game, we’re hoping to wear the team as we go and get more chances as we go. Just by the chance report, that’s exactly what happened.”

The Senators played without their captain Brady Tkachuk, who was sidelined with an upper-body injury he suffered on Sunday against the Penguins. Tkachuk’s emotions and physical prowess were sorely needed against the Sabres.

“It’s tough for sure,” Sanderson said. “He’s the heart and soul of our team. He brings a lot of energy and physicality to our team. We missed him a lot tonight.”

But it’s not like Tkachuk has missed all the other encounters against Buffalo this year. In those games, Tkachuk tried to stir the pot or scored in an attempt to rally his troops. Ottawa’s failure to defeat Buffalo this season is more than just not having their captain.

“Honestly, I just feel like you’ve got to respect every single team in the league,” Sanderson said when asked what he could learn from Tuesday’s loss. “A team like that, they’re out of the playoffs. But they’re still going to come out hard. They’re going to come out hard every single night. They have pride playing hockey, playing the game. It’s on us to do the same to get the job done.”

The Senators’ chances of making the playoffs remain high with eight games remaining. The toughest stretch of those eight games comes this week. Tampa Bay and Florida are both on the docket, with Columbus next Sunday as the second game of a back-to-back. Ottawa once again will have to dig itself out of a potential slide as teams below in the standings are champing at the bit to keep themselves afloat.

If the Senators hadn’t wasted opportunities to knock off the Sabres throughout the year, they would’ve put themselves much closer to their postseason goal.

(Photo of Jiri Kulich and Drake Batherson: Marc DesRosiers / Imagn Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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