{"id":382661,"date":"2026-01-02T02:16:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T02:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/382661\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T02:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T02:16:07","slug":"zetterlunds-late-goal-leads-ottawa-senators-to-victory-over-washington-capitals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/382661\/","title":{"rendered":"Zetterlund’s late goal leads Ottawa Senators to victory over Washington Capitals"},"content":{"rendered":"

OTTAWA \u2014 Fabian Zetterlund<\/a>\u2019s 10th goal of the season proved to be a big one as the Ottawa Senators<\/a> beat the Washington Capitals<\/a> 4-3 Thursday afternoon.<\/p>\n

Zetterlund scored with less than two and a half minutes remaining in regulation when he fired a shot short side past Capitals goaltender Logan Thompson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

His goal came less than two minutes after Washington’s Aliaksei Protas<\/a> tied the game at 3-3.<\/p>\n

David Perron<\/a>, Ridly Greig<\/a> and Nick Jensen<\/a> also scored for Ottawa, while Leevi Merilainen stopped 26 shots to snap a three-game losing streak.<\/p>\n

The Capitals (21-15-5), who were playing the back half of a back-to-back, had jumped out to a 2-0 lead on goals from Tom Wilson<\/a> and Dylan Strome<\/a>. Thompson made 28 saves.<\/p>\n

After Merilainen stopped a flurry of shots from in close Wilson jumped on a loose puck for his team-leading 22nd of the season giving the Capitals an early 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n

Just over a minute later, Protas went awkwardly into the boards after he and Artem Zub<\/a> collided racing for a puck. Protas was slow to get up and left the game but returned later in the period.<\/p>\n

The first-period chippiness continued when Senators defenceman Thomas Chabot<\/a> was taken down hard by Justin Sourdif<\/a>. Drake Batherson<\/a> dropped the gloves with Sourdif minutes later for the Senators forward’s third career fight.<\/p>\n

Strome made it 2-0 taking a Ryan Leonard<\/a> pass and wristed a long shot through traffic to beat a screened Merilainen.<\/p>\n

Jensen cut the lead in half scoring on a Jake Sanderson<\/a> rebound at 7:42 of the second.<\/p>\n

Batherson had a wide-open net late in the second period, but his shot rang off the post. But Greig tied it with 28.8 seconds left in the frame when he deflected a shot that Thompson inadvertently pushed across the goal-line.<\/p>\n

Ottawa (19-15-5) then took its first lead 2:47 into the third on a goal from Perron.<\/p>\n

TAKEAWAYS<\/p>\n

Senators: Ottawa gave up way too many chances from in close early in the game, but managed to improve as the game went on.<\/p>\n

Capitals: Washington started strong but the fact they were playing the back half of a back-to-back showed late in the game.<\/p>\n

KEY STAT<\/p>\n

Jake Sanderson<\/a> recorded his 20th assist of 2025-26 and became the first defenceman in Senators\u2019 history to reach the mark in each of his first four seasons.<\/p>\n

KEY MOMENT<\/p>\n

Stephen Halliday<\/a> fed Perron out front to one-time it past Thompson to give the Senators their first lead of the game.<\/p>\n

UP NEXT<\/p>\n

Senators: The Senators hosts the Winnipeg Jets<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Capitals: Washington hosts the Chicago Blackhawks<\/a> on Saturday.<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 1, 2026<\/p>\n

Lisa Wallace, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OTTAWA \u2014 Fabian Zetterlund\u2019s 10th goal of the season proved to be a big one as the Ottawa…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382662,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-382661","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382661","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=382661"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382661\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382662"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}