Brady Tkachuk scored twice, including the overtime winner, as the Ottawa Senators beat the Edmonton Oilers 4-3 Saturday afternoon at Rogers Place.
“Now we need help,” Oilers coach Ken Hitchcock said of the Oilers playoff chances. “Now we’ve got to count on other people.”
LISTEN BELOW: Ken Hitchcock
Tkachuk opened the scoring on an early Senators power play. His centering pass deflected off Adam Larsson, then Mikko Koskinen before popping over the goal line.
Alex Chiasson responded with a backhand goal on a breakaway for his 21st of the season.
On another Senators power play, Bobby Ryan knocked down a clearing attempt, went to the net, and tapped in a pass from Thomas Chabot to make it 2-1 Ottawa.
Connor McDavid scored the only goal of the second period, firing home a pass from Leon Draisaitl for his 38th of the season.
Brian Gibbons deflected a pass from Magnus Paajarvi past Mikko Koskinen, to put the Sens back in front with 12:23 left.
“Playing against a team like that, they’ve got nothing to lose,” Draisaitl said. “They’re just going to go out and play, so for sure that’s a lost point for us.”
Colby Cave roofed a shot only 56 seconds later, to pull the Oilers even again.
Tkachuk took the puck down the left side in overtime. His shot fluttered off Koskinen’s glove and hopped over the line 2:09 into overtime.
“It was a huge team win.”
Senators Coach Marc Crawford also sounded off on the game.”We played two defencemen right off the bat. Our guy, Chabot, is kind of like a forward at times — he’d be like the old rover in the seven-man game,” Crawford said. “We have that luxury with Thomas playing the way he can play. He can skate with anybody, and you saw he wanted McDavid; he went right to him. He wanted the man-on-man with McDavid.
“That’s really good. That’s a little bit of the game-within-the-game and when you get young star guys trying to challenge the other young star guys, that’s for me one of the interesting things that happened.”
WATCH: Edmonton Oilers prepare for serious playoff push
“We wanted that other point, but you’ve got to look at the bright side,” said Cave. “We’ve got to come back on Tuesday and bear down really hard.”
“The more points you give up, the more fate you take out of your own hands, so you definitely check what’s going on around the league,” Oilers rearguard Darnell Nurse said.
LISTEN BELOW: Darnell Nurse
The Oilers, 33-34-8, will host the Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday.
— with files from 630 CHED’s Brenden Escott and Scott Johnston