The Ottawa Senators snapped their four-game losing streak on Saturday afternoon with a 5-0 road win over the Pittsburgh Penguins. It was Ottawa’s first victory of 2025, and a significant one against an Eastern wild card rival.
Shane Pinto scored twice for the Senators, Claude Giroux set up three goals, and Leevi Merilainen made 30 saves for his first NHL shutout.
If afternoon NHL games are supposed to be sleepy, the Senators and Penguins didn’t get the memo.
In a first period that Sens center Pinto described on TSN television as “the craziest period of the year,” the two clubs came out like cats and dogs with plenty of big hits and chippy play. More importantly, the Senators didn’t look at all like a team that’s been struggling to score, getting on the board twice in the first five minutes.
Tyler Kleven opened the scoring with a shot from the point. Then the Penguins were penalized for a failed goalie interference challenge, which wasn’t really even close. Shane Pinto then made it 2-0 on the ensuing power play with a nice shot from the high slot.
Later in the first, on the penalty kill, Pinto grabbed a loose puck, skated the length of the ice, and made it 3-0. According to Sportsnet, Pinto is the first Senator to score both a power-play and short-handed goal in a period since Milan Michalek in 2012.
In the second, the oft-injured Josh Norris gave Sens fans a scare when he left the ice and went down the tunnel. Turns out that a deflected puck hit him in a sensitive place.
That’s how Penguin fans were probably feeling as the Sens scored two more goals after digging out loose pucks on plays that would usually be blown dead. At the bottom of a pile of bodies, mini-sticks style, Norris poked a puck out of the pile to Drake Batherson, who had an empty net to shoot at. That was Batherson’s first goal in 11 games.
Then, with Penguins goalie Alex Nedeljkovic apparently sitting on a puck, and everyone thinking it was frozen, Tim Stützle saw that it was still loose, fished it out, and made it 5-0, ending Nedeljkovic’s afternoon.
That would be it for the scoring as. The third period came and went quietly, just as it did for Ottawa when they were shutout at home on Thursday.
Cole Reinhardt left the game after the first period and didn’t return after taking two big hits late in the period. First it was a hit from behind into the boards. Then it was a collision with Kris Letang, who got the worst of it, sent flying into his own net. Reinhardt then took a nasty fall in the aftermath after being slew-footed by Nedeljkovic.
The Senators are back at it on Sunday at 5 pm, hosting the Dallas Stars.
This story comes from The Hockey News Ottawa website. For more Senators coverage all season long, check out THN Ottawa.
