Tkachuk and Chychrun each score twice to lift Senators to 5-2 win over Flyers
OTTAWA, Ontario - Brady Tkachuk and Jakob Chychrun each scored twice to lead the Ottawa Senators to a 5-2 win over the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday.
Anton Forsberg made 19 saves and Jake Sanderson also scored for Ottawa, who picked up their first win after dropping the season opener in Carolina 5-3.
"It’s huge," Tkachuk said of getting the first win. "Something to build on and we’re right back at it tomorrow, so you can’t really focus on (Saturday) much longer because we’ve got a wagon coming in tomorrow so you’ve got to be ready for that and that task. We just have to keep building on it."
Travis Konecny and Cam York scored and Carter Hart stopped 26 shots for the Flyers.
Philadelphia opened the season with a 4-2 win over Columbus on Thursday night, but struggled to generate much against Ottawa.
"We’re not going to panic, but our penalty kill, our power play, our offense, our defense, we were outplayed in all categories (Saturday)," Flyers coach John Tortorella said. "We’ll look at the tape and dust ourselves off and get ready for a game on Tuesday."
Ottawa took a 5-2 lead early in the third with its third power-play goal of the game. Claude Giroux found Tkachuk for his second of the contest.
A pair of first-period goals by Chychrun gave Ottawa a 2-1 lead after 20 minutes.
Two minutes in Zack MacEwen found Chychrun to open the scoring. With the man advantage Tarasenko made a no-look pass to Chychrun in the right circle, and he beat Hart high stick side.
"We defended a lot better and when we defend well it leads to offense," said Chychrun. "That’s really kind of what we wanted to get back on track here today is kind of limiting their chances and we know it’s going to create chances for us off the rush."
The Flyers cut the lead in half late in the period on a two-man advantage, with Konecky picking up a rebound in front to bury his third of the season.
The power play continued to reward the Senators in the second period as Sanderson beat Hart with a one-timer. The Flyers responded 18 seconds later with York taking a puck off the half wall to beat Forsberg.
With 5.1 seconds remaining in the second Giroux stripped Travis Sanheim along the boards and fed Tkachuk to pick up his first of the season.
"Everybody contributed," Tkachuk said. "There’s a lot of players that played awesome tonight and that’s kind of what we needed for us as a team and of course it helped with the atmosphere that the fans provided and we’re going to need that all year."
NOTES: Josh Norris missed his second straight game. Former Flyers RW Zack MacEwen returned to the lineup after missing Ottawa’s season opener. ... Giroux was recognized before the game for hitting the 1,000-point mark last season. He spent 15 seasons with the Flyers after being drafted 22nd overall in 2006.
UP NEXT
Flyers: Host Vancouver on Tuesday.
Ottawa: Host Tampa Bay on Sunday.