OTTAWA \u2014 The Ottawa Senators closed out 2025 with a three-game losing streak after a four-game win streak, and closer to the bottom of their conference than the top.<\/p>\n
The Senators fell 4-1 to the Columbus Blue Jackets, who arrived at Canadian Tire Centre less than three hours before Monday’s puck drop because of their plane’s mechanical issues.<\/p>\n
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Ottawa (18-15-5) went 6-5-1 in December and was three points out of an Eastern Conference wild-card spot Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur division is a good division, but we could very easily go on a run if we get playing good hockey, we can stack some wins together and climb the standings,\u201d said Senators forward Shane Pinto, who returned Monday after missing the previous 10 games due to injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was little rusty but as the games go on, hopefully I\u2019ll feel better and better and contribute.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The Senators started the season 2-4-1 before three straight wins put them above the .500 mark.<\/p>\n
Ottawa didn’t string together more than two wins in a row after that until taking four straight over seven days in mid-December.<\/p>\n
The club’s first playoff appearance in seven years in 2025 had the organization and fans anticipating a return to the post-season in 2026.<\/p>\n
That’s possible, but Ottawa’s current skid indicates there’s a lot of work to be done.<\/p>\n
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“It is frustrating. I\u2019d love to yell and scream and break sticks right now, but that\u2019s not what we should be doing. We should be putting our head down find a way to turn it around,\u201d said goaltender Leevi Merilainen.<\/p>\n
He could see a big increase in workload with No.1 netminder Linus Ullmark away from the team for a personal leave of absence.<\/p>\n
“Probably means more games and I\u2019m ready for that,” Merilainen said. “That\u2019s why I\u2019m here, to play games and I\u2019m looking forward to that, but it has not been good enough from us.<\/p>\n
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“Don\u2019t know why, but we have to figure that out.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Senators’ most recent swoon had some fans unhappy Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could hear some boos coming down at the end of the game and you never want to hear that,” said defenceman Jake Sanderson, who scored Ottawa’s lone goal against Columbus.<\/p>\n
“You never want to see fans leave the game early too, so it\u2019s on us to come together and figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tim Stutzle (41 points in 38 games), Drake Batherson (37 in 35) and Brady Tkachuk (18 in 18) were on a point-a-game pace.<\/p>\n
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Heading into Thursday’s home game against the Washington Capitals, the Senators ranked 13th in the NHL in goals-against (120) and 12th in goals for (120).<\/p>\n
A strong finish last season helped the Senators to the post-season, in which they lost in six games to the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round, and to a 44-30-10 record for the 2025 calendar year.<\/p>\n
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 30, 2025.<\/p>\n
Darren Desaulniers, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OTTAWA \u2014 The Ottawa Senators closed out 2025 with a three-game losing streak after a four-game win streak,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377238,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[12717,49,48,161017,755,96530,41846,96254,28145,448,744,950,82,67407,67408,746,754],"class_list":["post-377237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-brady-tkachuk","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-tire-centre","tag-columbus-blue-jackets","tag-drake-batherson","tag-jake-sanderson","tag-linus-ullmark","tag-losing-streak","tag-nhl","tag-ottawa-senators","tag-shane-pinto","tag-sports","tag-the-senators","tag-tim-stutzle","tag-toronto-maple-leafs","tag-washington-capitals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}