OTTAWA — With a few minutes left in Ottawa’s 3-0 win over the Florida Panthers on Saturday afternoon, the Senators crowd chanted loudly, “We want playoffs.”
With the win, Ottawa (41-29-6) moved 12 games above .500 and closer to its first post-season berth since 2016-17.
“I’ve never seen a buzz like this,” Ottawa’s Drake Batherson said. “It creates momentum for our group.
“Every weekday game this week has been pretty well sold out, you come out for warmup and it’s jammed. You come out and you hear that crowd, even during ‘O Canada,’ and it’s just awesome to be playing in a Canadian marketing during this time of year.”
Batherson scored at 14:17 of the first period to make it 2-0 after Jake Sanderson opened the scoring three minutes earlier. It was the fourth straight home game where Sanderson has scored.
Batherson tipped in a Dylan Cozens slapshot and there was a sheepish celebration between the duo — as it came just seconds after Batherson missed a tap-in into an open net.
Matthew Highmore added an empty-net goal with less than three minutes to go.
But it was backup goalie Anton Forsberg who was the star of the show. He stopped 40 shots to record his third shutout of the season.
“He’s been awesome,” Batherson said. “He’s been one of the hardest-working guys I know, even if he doesn’t play four or five games, he’s still grinding so then when he does come in here, like today, he’s able to perform like that.
“You love seeing a guy come in like that and shut the door against the defending Stanley Cup champions. Huge game. Huge win. He played awesome.”
The Panthers (44-28-4) hadn’t been shut out since Dec. 28 when they fell to the Montreal Canadiens 4-0. That was their second straight scoreless effort, having lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning by the same 4-0 margin Dec. 23.
Sergei Bobrovsky made 19 saves for Florida, which has lost four straight.
Ottawa coach Travis Green was quick to describe Saturday afternoon’s game “as close to a playoff game” as they’d get. He especially liked the Senators’ first period against a team that’s “hungry to find a win.”
Florida continued to try to find some spark with the season ending. The Panthers cobbled together a lineup Saturday afternoon still down plenty of their stars, including Matthew Tkachuk, and they’ll return to the ice Sunday against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
“In the second they tilted the ice on us like good teams do, but I like how we responded in the third and found our game,” Green said. “Obviously, Forsberg gave us a good game.
“A great game.”
The Senators defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-1 on Thursday before topping the Panthers on Saturday. Ottawa will face off against the Detroit Red Wings on Sunday.
But defeating the two Florida teams with some serious playoff pedigree has given the Senators’ faithful plenty to cheer about. It has also made the Senators players even more dialed in with the franchise closing in on its first playoff berth in nearly a decade.
“We’ve got a group — I’ve said it since I’ve got the job — that really wants to win badly,” Green said. “Everyone says they want to win, but you’ve got to be committed to make changes to win.
“We’ve got guys that have shown they are just that.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 5, 2025.
Adam Stanley, The Canadian Press
