{"id":325008,"date":"2025-12-03T13:18:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T13:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/325008\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T13:18:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T13:18:11","slug":"tkachuk-scores-first-goal-as-senators-end-road-trip-with-massive-win-over-canadiens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/325008\/","title":{"rendered":"Tkachuk scores first goal as Senators end road trip with ‘massive’ win over Canadiens"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONTREAL \u2014 Brady Tkachuk<\/a> enjoys being a villain at the Bell Centre.<\/p>\n

The Ottawa Senators<\/a> captain famously \u2014 or infamously \u2014 dropped the gloves for the United States as part of three fights in nine seconds against Canada at last February\u2019s 4 Nations Face-Off.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, he scored his first goal of the season and taunted the crowd as the Senators ground down the Canadiens for a 5-2 win to cap a season-long seven-game road trip.<\/p>\n

\u201cMassive win,\u201d Tkachuk said. \u201cIt\u2019s a four-point swing, these types of games. And usually these big games are after the bye week (later in the season), but with how close everything is, it\u2019s important in early December.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast game of the road trip, we wanted to get this road trip on an over .500 record and then that\u2019d be a successful trip. It was a great game by absolutely everybody on the team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tkachuk, who missed 20 games with a thumb injury, scored for the first time in six games this season. <\/p>\n

The six-foot-four, 226-pound winger buried the insurance goal with a snap shot past Sam Montembeault<\/a> at 12:43 of the third period, raised his arms to celebrate with a Senators fan along the glass, and shoved his teammates in excitement.<\/p>\n

The Canadiens fans, meanwhile, filled the building with jeers \u2014 both because of Tkachuk\u2019s goal and the delayed penalty to Brendan Gallagher<\/a> that preceded it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if they\u2019re booing me or booing the play behind me,\u201d Tkachuk. \u201cBut yeah, it\u2019s always nice when you hear the boos from this crowd.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drake Batherson<\/a>, Jake Sanderson<\/a> and Artem Zub<\/a> \u2014 with a slick behind-the-back assist from Tkachuk \u2014 also scored as Ottawa (13-9-4) snapped a two-game skid, including a dismal 6-1 loss to Dallas on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Ottawa, with 30 points, also leapfrogged Montreal into second place in the Atlantic. The Canadiens dropped outside the playoff picture.<\/p>\n

Senators coach Travis Green<\/a> credited his team\u2019s work at 5-on-5, as Ottawa\u2019s relentless forecheck overwhelmed its opponent on a night the Canadiens lacked effort.<\/p>\n

\u201cReal good team effort,\u201d Green said. \u201cOur 5-on-5 game was excellent tonight. I like how we played away from the puck. I like how we hounded the puck. It\u2019s a good game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe talked about where our mindset should be after we\u2019ve lost two games in a row, playing a team that we\u2019re a point behind in their building. At this time of the year this is probably as close to a playoff-like game you\u2019re gonna get.\u201d<\/p>\n

DEFENCE TO OFFENCE<\/p>\n

Along with Sanderson and Zub\u2019s goals, Jordan Spence<\/a> and Tyler Kleven<\/a> provided two assists apiece as Ottawa\u2019s blue line contributed six points on the night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI honestly thought this was probably one of our d-core\u2019s best games of the season,\u201d Sanderson said. \u201cWe were skating the puck out of the zone, we were breaking out pucks really cleanly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanderson pinched in from the point, drove to the net and beat Montembeault to the backhand to give the Senators a 3-1 lead in the second.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a pre-scout \u2014 just take pucks to the net and be dirty with it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018UNACCEPTABLE\u2019<\/p>\n

While the Senators celebrated a gritty road win, the Canadiens (13-9-3) kicked themselves for a poor defensive effort.<\/p>\n

Montembeault looked shaky, giving up several juicy rebounds, but the skaters in front of him were often caught watching as Ottawa charged the crease uncontested.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of just unacceptable,\u201d winger Cole Caufield<\/a> said. \u201cOur whole d-zone today was, you know, a lack of maybe effort or being ready to go, but you know (I\u2019m) tired of losing due to d-zone one-on-one battles. I mean, you gotta find your guy and you gotta win that battle.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of their goals come off our mistakes and our issues with not picking guys up, and it\u2019s unacceptable \u2026 it better be a one-off. There\u2019s a lot more effort in this room and we gotta prove that, especially at home.\u201d<\/p>\n

One minute after Sanderson\u2019s goal, Batherson pounced on another loose rebound and casually flipped the puck into an open net as Montreal\u2019s defence stood still.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m disappointed the way our team defended tonight,\u201d coach Martin St. Louis<\/a> said. \u201cThe other team defended way harder than we did. We lost a lot of battles, and defensively we weren\u2019t there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Canadiens play again Wednesday night against the Winnipeg Jets<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 3, 2025.<\/p>\n

Daniel Rainbird, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONTREAL \u2014 Brady Tkachuk enjoys being a villain at the Bell Centre. The Ottawa Senators captain famously \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325009,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-325008","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=325008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/325008\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=325008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=325008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=325008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}