OTTAWA, ON — Thomas Chabot scored twice, including the game winner late in the third period, and also picked up an assist to lead the Ottawa Senators to a 4-3 victory over the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday night.
Chabot was back after missing four games and hit a career milestone playing in his 300th game. Brady Tkachuk and Tim Stutzle also scored for Ottawa, while Anton Forsberg stopped 40 shots. The game wrapped up a stretch of 10 games in 16 nights for the Senators (19-26-5).
Kevin Fiala, Jared Spurgeon and Jon Merrill scored for the Wild (31-14-3), who were playing the second of four games on a Canadian road trip. Goalie Cam Talbot made 30 saves in his second consecutive loss.
Minnesota tied the game 3-3 in the opening minutes of the third as Merrill made the most of a giveaway, firing a wrist shot past Forsberg. But with just over five minutes remaining in regulation Chabot scored his second of the night.
The Wild outshot the Senators 17-8 in the second, but trailed 3-2 after giving up a late goal.
Trailing 2-0 to start the second, Fiala came off the bench to fire a shot from the hashmarks to open the scoring for the Wild. Fiala now has 24 points (13 goals, 11 assists) over his last 19 games.
Spurgeon tied the game midway through the period with a shot from the slot, but with just under four minutes remaining Stutzle scored his 12th of the season to make it 3-2 for Ottawa. Stutzle has goals in three consecutive games.
The Senators couldn’t have asked for a better start as Chabot opened the scoring just two minutes in, beating Talbot with a shot short side.
Tkachuk made it 2-0 late in the period with a power-play goal, taking a Chabot pass off the back boards on the goal line and firing a shot past Talbot. It was the Senators' first power-play goal in four games.
The Wild has recently made a habit of slow starts, and Talbot giving up a goal two minutes in had Minnesota on its heels right off the bat.
"Full credit to Ottawa. They played hard and right and heavy and smart and aggressive, real aggressive. They took the game away from us early," Wild coach Dean Evason told NHL.com. "We didn't catch it until the second period, and obviously we played well for two periods. But I don't care who you're playing in this league. This league is too good to spot teams continually, and that team just continued to play the same way.
"We started wrong. They started right."
It didn't help that red-hot winger Mats Zuccarello missed last night's tilt with an upper body injury. His absence snapped a four-game multi-points streak. The good news, is that Evason expects Zuccarello back in the lineup Thursday against Toronto.
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