Brady Tkachuk scores hat trick, lifts Senators past Islanders 4-3 in overtime
By Allan Kreda, The Associated Press on March 16, 2024.
NEW YORK (AP) – Brady Tkachuk scored on the power play in overtime to complete a hat trick and Joonas Korpisalo made 30 saves to help the Ottawa Senators beat the New York Islanders 4-3 on Saturday. Ridly Greig also scored for Ottawa, which won its third straight game after losing seven in a row. Bo Horvat tied the contest for the Islanders on the power play with 38 seconds left in regulation to send it into overtime. Horvat was called for holding at 3:05 in overtime and Tkachuk scored his team-leading 30th goal with 24 seconds remaining. “Great comeback for our team. We’ll take it,” said Tkachuk, the fourth overall pick in the 2018 draft who has three career hat tricks. “Credit to the guys. They stuck together.” Tim Stutzle had three assists and Drake Batherson had two assists for Ottawa. Long Island native Shane Pinto passed the puck to Tkachuk on the game-winning play which silenced the crowd at UBS Arena. “A cool moment for sure. Once I gave it to Brady, I was pretty sure he was going to put that in,” Pinto said. “A big game for our captain and a big game for our team, so it was a good win.” Matt Martin and Kyle Palmieri also scored for the Islanders, who lost a third game in a row after winning six straight to vault into playoff contention. New York fell one point behind Detroit for the second wild card spot in the Eastern Conference. The Red Wings beat the Buffalo Sabres 4-1 on Saturday. “It wasn’t enough, that’s for sure,” Islanders coach Patrick Roy said. “We just gave that game away, that’s all we did. … We are better than this, and we have to be better than this.” Semyon Varlamov had 26 saves for the Islanders, who are 12-2-2 in their last 16 games against the Senators, including 6-0-2 at home. Martin opened the scoring at 4:27 of the first, sliding the puck past Korpisalo on a wraparound. Linemates Cal Clutterbuck and Kyle MacLean assisted on Martin’s third goal. The 34-year-old Martin is in his 13th season with the Islanders. Tkachuk tied the contest 1-1 at 11:46 of the second. Batherson and Erik Brannstrom assisted. Palmieri put the Islanders ahead 2-1 with a sharp-angled shot from the right circle at 16:22 of the middle period to snap a 1-1 tie. The goal was Palmieri’s 21st of the season and his sixth in his last seven games. Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Anders Lee assisted. Greig tied the contest with his 10th at 6:35 of the third with assists to Stutzle and defenseman Artem Zub before Tkachuk put Ottawa ahead 3-2 on a power play at 12:14, one-timing a pass from Stutzle, who leads the Senators with 47 assists and 63 points overall. “It’s good experience, it shows you have to stick with it and be composed and go right to the end,” Ottawa’s interim head coach Jacques Martin said. “It’s nice to win those games because it’s rewarding to get that extra point.” Ottawa defenseman Jake Sanderson left the game midway through the third period after he became tangled along the boards with Lee. Sanderson’s lower right leg twisted unnaturally as he fell to the ice. Sanderson did return late in the contest. The Islanders have 16 games remaining over the final month of the regular season and Roy emphasized that his team will have to execute better down the stretch to secure a playoff spot. “We’ve got to be better in our battles in a game like this,” Roy said. “I felt we were a little too pretty offensively. … We were looking for the perfect play. We’ve got to simplify some of those things.” UP NEXT Islanders: Visit Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Sunday. Senators: Host Carolina Hurricanes on Sunday. ___ AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl 23-22
