{"id":607183,"date":"2026-04-16T04:05:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T04:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/607183\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T04:05:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T04:05:11","slug":"short-handed-ottawa-senators-do-enough-to-beat-sliding-toronto-maple-leafs-ahead-of-playoff-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/607183\/","title":{"rendered":"Short-handed Ottawa Senators do enough to beat sliding Toronto Maple Leafs ahead of playoff opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

OTTAWA \u2014 Despite resting six players, the Ottawa Senators<\/a> wrapped up their regular season with a 3-1 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> Wednesday night to head into the post-season riding a high.<\/p>\n

The loss ensures Toronto (32-36-14) will finish in the bottom-five allowing them to retain their first-round pick in the upcoming draft.<\/p>\n

Toronto, which fell far short of expectations, finished the season having lost their final seven games (0-6-1).<\/p>\n

Drake Batherson<\/a>, Warren Foegel and Dylan Cozens<\/a> scored for the Senators (44-27-11), while James Reimer<\/a> stopped 19 shots against his former team.<\/p>\n

Dennis Hildeby<\/a>, who made 35 saves, was in goal for Toronto after he was recalled from the American Hockey League\u2019s Toronto Marlies Tuesday. William Nylander<\/a> scored the lone goal for Toronto.<\/p>\n

The Leafs made it 2-1 midway through the third when Nylander backhanded a bouncing puck from the slot to beat Reimer.<\/p>\n

Cozens added an empty-net goal with five seconds remaining.<\/p>\n

Toronto was outshot 12-6 in the second and Ottawa doubled its lead to make it 2-0 after 40 minutes.<\/p>\n

The Leafs generated a couple chances but nothing Reimer couldn\u2019t handle.<\/p>\n

Ottawa made it 2-0 with 1:28 remaining in the period when Foegele snapped a shot from just inside the blue line that beat Hildeby low glove side.<\/p>\n

Ottawa opened the scoring with a power-play goal early in the first when Claude Giroux<\/a> threaded a pass through traffic to Batherson out front for his 33rd of the season.<\/p>\n

With Ottawa short-handed late in the first, Nikolas Matinpalo<\/a> flipped a puck high to spring Foegele in alone, but Hildeby made a great save.<\/p>\n

TAKEAWAYS<\/p>\n

Senators: Despite missing numerous regulars the Senators dominated at both ends of the ice.<\/p>\n

Leafs: The Leafs looked like a team playing through the motions after a disappointing season.<\/p>\n

KEY STAT<\/p>\n

With a power-play goal in the first Ottawa owns a power-play percentage of 23.8 for 2025-26 which ties their highest in a season in team history, also 23.8 in 2024-25.<\/p>\n

UP NEXT<\/p>\n

Maple Leafs: Nothing until training camp.<\/p>\n

Senators: Open the playoffs on the road against the Carolina Hurricanes<\/a>. Date TBD.<\/p>\n

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 15, 2026.<\/p>\n

Lisa Wallace, The Canadian Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OTTAWA \u2014 Despite resting six players, the Ottawa Senators wrapped up their regular season with a 3-1 win…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607184,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[49,48,20739,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-607183","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ottawa","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-ottawa","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607183","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=607183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}