Forsberg has 39 saves for 1st shutout this season as Senators beat Kraken 2-0
OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Anton Forsberg stopped 39 shots for his first shutout of the season and the Ottawa Senators beat the Seattle Kraken 2-0 on Saturday night.
Mathieu Joseph and Drake Batherson scored goals to help the Senators snap a three-game ski d and get just their second home win. Forsberg’s shutout was the fourth of his career and evened his record to 4-4-0 this season.
Coming into the game, Forsberg was last in the league among goaltenders who had played at least one game with an .850 save percentage.
“It’s been tough,” Forsberg said. “It’s been a lot of ups and downs, obviously. Some good games, some bad games. I’ve got to find consistency, the whole team’s got to find some consistency. We’ve got to win games on a more regular basis here.”
Joey Daccord finished with 26 saves for the Kraken, losers of four straight (0-3-1).
“We’re here to get two points so we’re not really trying to win the game of positives, negatives,” Kraken coach Dave Hakstol said. “We’re trying to win a hockey game.”
Trailing 2-0 going into the third period, the Kraken pushed hard to get on the scoresheet, but Forsberg was solid. Seattle outshot Ottawa 15-3 in the third.
“Capping that off with a win, I think, was big for our group,” Stutzle said. “I think we played pretty well for 60 minutes. I think we could have scored more goals, and our (defensemen) did a heck of a job there blocking every shot, even in the last 10 seconds (Erik Brannstrom) ate one and that shows our commitment.”
Senators coach D.J. Smith was also pleased with his team’s effort.
“I just thought we stuck with it, blocked a lot of shots,” Smith said. “Obviously, goaltending was a big difference here tonight for us. Penalty kill got a couple of good kills. I thought we got a lot of contributions from a lot of guys away from the puck.”
Ottawa opened the scoring late in the first period after Matty Beniers lost an edge and lost the puck. Joseph was in front to pick it up and beat D’Accord for his fifth of the season with 2:39 remaining.
Both teams had a slow start to the second with the first shot of the period not coming until 8:22.
The Senators took a 2-0 lead at the 13-minute mark after Vladimir Tarasenko won a battle behind the net to feed Tim Stutzle, who passed to a wide-open Batherson. Stutzle picked up his 200th career point on the play.
“The rim came and it just hit my stick and bounced in the air and took a really bad bounce,” Daccord said. “I was trying to corral it and couldn’t corral it and saw (defenseman Will Borgen) coming so I thought he was coming to pick it up and had a bit of miscommunication. He thought I was going to play it, I thought he was going to pick it up and they capitalize. We’ll clean that up and I’ll be better for it.”
Ottawa had a brief scare when Thomas Chabot went down hard and left the ice favoring his right leg, but the defenseman returned after a brief absence.
Seattle’s Brandon Tanev returned to the lineup after missing the last two games. Justin Schultz played in his 700th NHL game.
UP NEXT
Kraken: At Montreal on Monday night.
Senators: Host the New York Rangers on Tuesday night.
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