The Ottawa Senators will look to snap a three-game losing streak when they host the Seattle Kraken on Thursday night.
Ottawa will be playing the second of back-to-back games after dropping an 8-4 decision to the host Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday. The Senators have allowed 18 goals in their past three games.
Seattle, meanwhile, has earned points in all three of its games — two wins and an overtime loss — thus far. The Kraken will be playing the second date of a six-game road trip after losing to the Montreal Canadians 5-4 in OT on Tuesday.
The Senators led 2-1 in the second period at Buffalo, but the Sabres scored four straight goals to make it 5-2 before the second intermission. Lars Eller pulled the Senators to within 5-4 early in the third period, but Buffalo scored twice over the next 62 seconds.
“It’s all little mistakes by all of us that just end up in the back of our net,” Ottawa defenseman Thomas Chabot said. “The positive thing is that we can fix it as a team and as a group. It’s frustrating right now, but as a group we’ve got to stay together … and make sure that (Thursday) night we’re ready to go.”
Jake Sanderson had a goal and an assist, Jordan Spence recorded three assists and Leevi Merilainen made 19 saves for the Senators, who will be opening a four-game homestand.
“Anytime you lose big like that it’s better you play the next day,” said Ottawa forward Drake Batherson, who played 17:27 in his season debut after missing the first three games with an upper-body injury. “You can forget about it quicker. We’re excited to get home.”
In Montreal on Tuesday, Seattle rallied from three one-goal deficits and took a 4-3 third-period lead. Montreal tied it with 2:41 left in regulation, and Cole Caufield scored his second goal of the game at 3:25 of overtime for the win.
“The effort was outstanding,” Kraken coach Lane Lambert said postgame. “I thought we did a lot of good things. There’s a lot of positives from that game. We made some mistakes, and those mistakes ended up in the back of our net tonight, whereas maybe in games one and two they didn’t.”
Jared McCann had a goal and an assist, and he has scored in each of Seattle’s three games. Joey Daccord made 17 saves for the Kraken, who allowed two goals combined in their first two games.
Kraken defenseman Vince Dunn had an assist, giving him four points (one goal, three assists) through four games. Newcomers Ryan Lindgren and Frederick Gaudreau both earned their first point (an assist for each) as members of the Kraken, and 11 different skaters earned at least one point.
“We should be confident,” McCann said. “We should take the positives out of this but learn from the bad. I know I say that a lot, but that’s the kind of thing we need to do moving forward.”
Last season, the Senators topped the Kraken 3-0 on Nov. 2 in Ottawa and then prevailed by the same score on Dec. 17 in Seattle.
