As Senators plant seeds of doubt in Toronto, it’s anyone’s series now

Sports

add

TORONTO — It was the Ottawa Senators’ biggest penalty kill of their season, and Dylan Cozens, who might have one other short-handed shift in this series, was on the ice. Hard to call it an ideal situation.

The Sens were up 1-0 in the third period and down a man against the Toronto Maple Leafs, who needed one goal to turn the tide and work toward clinching the series on home ice. Ridly Greig would normally be on the ice in this moment, except he took a holding penalty. So, Senators coach Travis Green relied on Cozens and Adam Gaudette to kill off a penalty against the Leafs’ power play. That same power play that had been so efficient through the first games of the series.

That was until an errant pass from Auston Matthews, of all people, kick-started a Sens breakout — a two-on-one featuring Gaudette and Cozens speeding up the ice. You could hear the groans from Leafs fans as Gaudette exited his zone.

“We’re at a time in a game where you don’t want to be too aggressive,” Cozens said, describing his mindset when he rushed up-ice with Gaudette. “I felt like I had the speed to beat my guy up the ice and try and create (an) opportunity. And he just made a great pass.”

When Cozens received that pass from Gaudette and beat Leafs goalie Anthony Stolarz, the vibe completely shifted.

DYLAN COZENS SHORTY!! pic.twitter.com/92X27ITfNB

— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet) April 30, 2025

The Senators looked spiritless days ago in their building Saturday night ahead of Game 4. But after Cozens’ short-handed goal, it was Toronto and Scotiabank Arena that were silent. And it is Ottawa that remains very much alive after its first road playoff win this spring. A 4-0 shutout victory in an elimination game, featuring 3-point nights from Brady Tkachuk and Tim Stützle.

The seeds of doubt have been planted in Toronto.

“I think so,” Tkachuk told Sportsnet. “We’re not going to go away easy. Our season’s (been) on the line the last two games. Our mindset’s not going to change. If we lose, you go home. We’re going to do everything it takes and leave everything we have out there.”

“I think it gives our team belief,” Green said after the win. “I can’t speak for how (the Leafs) feel or the pressure that’s on their team. I don’t think our group has really felt pressure from the beginning. We talked about playing game-to-game, resetting, getting ready to play the next game. And that really hasn’t changed from the start of the series.”

The Senators entered the series as underdogs and with one iota of the pressure on their backs compared with the Maple Leafs and the playoff demons that live in their heads and beds. They weren’t naive to it. Remember, they embraced it.

“You’re going out there and you’ve got nothing to lose,” Sens defenceman Thomas Chabot said Tuesday morning before the game. “We know where we’re at. We know it was our first time making the playoffs in eight years. But at the end of the day, we know what we have in here as a team, as a group. We know we have a lot of talent and we know we can battle with these guys. It’s shown (in) the last few games.”

Fittingly, it was Chabot who opened the scoring with a shot from the blue line Tuesday night.

CHABOT SENT THE BISCUIT FROM THE BLUELINE TO PUT OTTAWA AHEAD 😱

📺 ESPN pic.twitter.com/q1m6KSehNF

— ESPN (@espn) April 30, 2025

The Sens were outshot 29-19 by the Leafs, but hung in with their defence and goaltending. Jake Sanderson put on a defensive master class against the Leafs’ best players while playing 26:27 and blocking two shots. His partner, Artem Zub, blocked eight shots in 23:46. Matthews posted a 33.33 Corsi rating at five-on-five when Sanderson was on the ice compared with a 45 percent rate when he wasn’t, according to Natural Stat Trick. And he wasn’t the only player he shut down. John Tavares, Matthew Knies, Mitch Marner and William Nylander all had Corsi ratings below 50 percent with Sanderson on the ice,

But here’s something just as startling: Tavares, Knies, Marner and Nylander posted worse ratings at five-on-five when they weren’t going up against Sanderson. It spoke to how ineffective the Leafs’ best players were against the Sens’ defence as a whole.

But the man who deserves the most praise Tuesday night is Linus Ullmark. This is the game he needed to steal. This is the game he needed to show why it was worth it for the Senators to acquire him. A suboptimal playoff record hung over him. But he played perfectly. Twenty-nine saves in a shutout performance. The Sens’ No. 1 goalie has genuinely gotten more solid as the series has gone on.

“My job is to stop pucks,” Ullmark said. “Every night, it’s about battling out there with the other goalie and the other team, and try to make more saves than the other guy and come up victorious. Sometimes, I’ve said it as well, it comes down to Lady Luck, as well when it comes to certain areas of the game. But you’ve got to earn it. You’ve got to earn it every single night, and not think that it’s just going to happen every night because you never know.”

Tuesday night’s factors, combined with the Sens’ success at five-on-five and goals in clutch moments, have contributed to the Sens’ swelling momentum and building of hope. The Leafs are still favoured to win, but the chances of Ottawa completing a reverse sweep still feel real. If you somehow didn’t believe the Sens were playing with house money when they entered the series, it’s a certainty now.

It’s given the Sens every reason to double down on their play style as it has finally brought them wins.

“I’ve said it all along, even when we lost the first couple of games,” Chabot said after the game. “The reason why we got here is by playing our game. And it led us to being in this position and playing playoff hockey. I’ve said it all along that the quicker we get to our game and the better we play it, then we give ourselves a chance every single night, like we did all season. It’s great to win the last two games. But now you’ve got to turn the page and we’re going home and we’re going to have to do the same thing all over again.”

If you thought the atmospheres at games 3 and 4 were loud at the Canadian Tire Centre, Game 6 should foster enough energy to power an entire city.

“I expect pure insanity, that’s for sure,” Tkachuk said.

The Senators have earned that right to get their fans riled up one more time in this series.

(Photo of Anthony Stolarz and Dylan Cozens: Kevin Sousa / NHLI via Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

Share on

email

Previous

trending_flat

Fantasy Football 2025: RB Cameron Skattebo player profile

Fantasy

Next

trending_flat

Ravens post-NFL Draft depth chart: Crowded at OLB, depth still needed along both lines

Sports