(Montreal) Rafaël Harvey-Pinard scored twice in the third period, but it wasn’t enough as the Montreal Canadiens suffered a heartbreaking 5-4 loss to the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday night at the Bell Centre.
It was a lucky goal from Brady Tkachuk, scored with 78 seconds left in the third period, that made the difference.
Tkachuk attempted a shot that deflected off defenseman David Savard, who had slipped to try and block the puck. It changed course and slid to the left of Jake Allen and into the net.
On the game, Tim Stützle collected his fourth point of the match, he who had scored two goals, his 21e and 22e of the season.
Claude Giroux (20e) and Alex DeBrincat (17e) also hit the target. Thomas Chabot had three assists.
Kirby Dash (11e) and Mike Hoffman (9e), both on the power play, completed for the Habs.
After conceding two goals on the Senators’ first three shots, Allen made 24 saves. At the other end, Anton Forsberg, who shut out the Habs on Saturday in Ottawa, saved 28 pucks.
With the exception of Nick Suzuki, who will fly to Florida for the weekend of the All-Star Game, the Canadiens players will be on full leave until February 9, the day training resumes in Brossard.
The Canadiens’ next games will take place on Saturday, February 11 against the New York Islanders and the next day against the Edmonton Oilers.
In short supply quickly
Unlike Saturday’s duel, the Senators didn’t wait until the start of the second period to open the scoring.
With just three minutes remaining in the game, Giroux, posted in front of the net, was hit by a shot from Nikita Zaitsev, spinning the puck behind Allen.
Less than a minute later, Stützle was able to slip past Jordan Harris and stand alone in front of Allen, whom he beat with a pinpoint wrist shot into the upper, stick-side.
The Canadian came back into the game on his second power play of the first period.
After two unsuccessful attempts by Suzuki at the mouth of the net, Dach managed to push a loose puck down the red line behind Forsberg.
The goal ended a 97-minute, 17-second scoreless drought since the final moments of the second period of last Thursday’s game against the Detroit Red Wings.
The numerical superiorities produced for each of the two teams during the last four minutes of the second period.
At 16:23, DeBrincat restored the Senators to a two-goal lead when he completed a three-way play with Stützle and Chabot.
Then, with five seconds left in the period, during a penalty to Jake Sanderson, Hoffman scored with a one-timer.
In the third period, Harvey-Pinard stole the show by hitting the target twice in just over three minutes, each time allowing the Canadian to erase a one-goal deficit.
But Tkachuk was going to spoil these moments of rejoicing.