Defenseman Jake Sanderson hit double figures in goals for the second straight season, and the Ottawa Senators bolstered their playoff chances by ousting the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning 2-1 on Thursday.
Ottawa (40-29-6, 86 points) holds the No. 1 wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference and maintained a five-point lead over the No. 2 Montreal Canadiens. The Senators earned a 2-2-0 split in the season series with Tampa Bay.
Sanderson tallied on the power play to score for the third time in four games, while Shane Pinto snapped the net for the 17th time.
Ridly Greig posted two assists as the club improved to 10-4-1 in the past 15 games. Goaltender Linus Ullmark was outstanding in stopping 31 shots.
Defenseman Artem Zub skated in his 300th game, but the Senators were again without the services of dynamic captain Brady Tkachuk, who missed his second game with an upper-body injury.
Brandon Hagel notched his 34th marker for Tampa Bay (44-26-5, 93 points), which lost for the first time in five games. Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 17 shots.
In the Atlantic Division foes’ final regular-season matchup, Ullmark starred from the start. He denied a breakaway by Yanni Gourde near the eight-minute mark, then made a point-blank stop on Brayden Point on a two-on-one rush.
After a stout penalty kill on the first power play, Ottawa took the momentum on a three-on-two break. Pinto beat Vasilevskiy on the glove side at 13:45 for his first goal in 10 games.
On their first power play early in the second, the Senators went up 2-0 at 5:17 as Sanderson tallied for the 10th time on a feed from Greig. The Lightning responded when Gourde took a stretch pass from Ryan McDonagh, put a shot on goal and watched Hagel clean up the rebound just 1:43 later.
However, Ullmark got his revenge in the final 20 seconds of the period, making a head-first diving stop on Jake Guentzel’s shot from in close.
In the game’s final five minutes, Ottawa killed off another penalty with Ullmark’s standout play, and the last minute was played frantically in front of the home side’s net as the Senators held on.
