Sens make it two straight wins over the Canucks

The Ottawa Senators made it two straight wins as they doubled up the Vancouver Canucks 6-3 at Canadian Tire Centre Wednesday night.

In his second straight start, Marcus Hogberg made 19 saves in the Ottawa (19-27-4) net while Victor Mete, Chris Tierney, Josh Norris, Thomas Chabot, Brady Tkachuk and Colin White scored. Thatcher Demko (19-21-3) stopped 27 shots for the Canucks as Tyler Myers, Jake Virtanen and Brandon Sutter had goals.

“We have all the right pieces in the room and this last stretch here has really shown how good of a team we are when we play together and we play the right way,” Nick Paul said. “We’re just building and building for next year.

“We’re learning how to play and learning how to keep leads.”

Ottawa had a 1-0 advantage just 2:04 into the game and it came through defenceman Mete who took an Alex Formenton pass in stride before beating Demko glove side for his first as a Senator and only his fifth career goal.

“It’s definitely nice to finally score that one and it happened early so it was good,” Mete said. “I know Forms pretty well, I played with him in junior, so I know he would be able to find me there in the middle and good things happen.”

The Senators came out flying in the second with two goals in 32 seconds. The lead was doubled just 38 seconds into the period as after Demko saved Chabot’s initial point shot, Tierney was on hand to put in his sixth of the season at the side of the net. Norris made it 3-0 as Tkachuk forced a turnover in the left circle before feeding to the rookie who made no mistake for his 15th of the season.

Myers got Vancouver on the board at 5:43 as he walked in all alone from the top of the right circle to pick his spot past Hogberg who had lots of traffic in front of him.

Ottawa restored its three-goal lead 53 seconds later as after Nick Paul’s shot from the slot had been blocked, the puck found Chabot who was able to beat a diving defender, and Demko, for his fifth goal of the season.

“One thing we wanted to do as a group is really [start] building for next year and create ourselves a really good identity and I think we’ve done that,” Chabot said. “Other teams in the division are realizing that it’s harder than they thought to play against us and that shows a lot for us as a group and we obviously want to keep building on that and keep winning more games by the end of the season.”

Vancouver cut the Sens’ lead to 4-2 at 7:23 as Hogberg misplayed the puck behind the net allowing Tyler Motte to send it out front where Virtanen deposited his fifth goal. However, Tkachuk got the lead back to three at 16:13 as Drake Batherson found him all alone against the right wing boards at the blue line and he skated in to bury his 16th of the campaign.

White scored into the empty-net with 5:27 to play as he moved into double digit goals for the season. Sutter scored with 2:17 to play to cut Ottawa’s lead to 6-3.

“We had a lot of good efforts by a lot of guys,” Sens head coach D.J. Smith said.

Tkachuk also registered the first Gordie Howe hat-trick of his career tonight as to go along with his goal and assist, he dropped the gloves with Zack MacEwen in the first period.

“I mean, I’m not going to lie, it’s pretty cool,” Tkachuk said. “But, I was more happy with the outcome and how we played. We played a full 60 and a great game from top to bottom and we’re showing our true colours right now.”

With his assist on Mete’s goal, Alex Formenton recorded his first NHL assist to go along with his four career goals. He’d add a second assist later in the game on Chabot’s marker.

Ottawa is back in action Saturday when they visit Montreal.