Bruins Fall 4-1 to Senators, Drop to 2-2 After Flat Start
Ottawa scored four unanswered, swept all three stars, and turned a Boston power play into a shorthanded goal against — a rough night to watch from the couch.
Final: Senators 4, Bruins 1. And honestly? Glad I wasn't paying for a seat at the Garden for this one.
The game was decided before most fans had finished their first beer. Tim Stützle opened the scoring at 7:39 of the first on a snap shot off a feed from Michael Amadio — and the team stats show that one came while Ottawa was killing a penalty. Boston had a power play. Boston came out of it down a goal. That's the kind of start that tells you everything about a team's shape before the period's even half over.
Stützle wasn't done. He struck again at 9:22, unassisted, and it was 2-0 Senators before the first intermission. Boston didn't just lose the press in that stretch — they didn't have one.
The second period was worse. Drake Batherson picked off a pass at the blue line during a Bruins line change and buried a backhand breakaway just 1:06 in to make it 3-0. Then at 5:19, Amadio scored his second of the night off helpers from Shane Pinto and Nick Cousins, and suddenly it was 4-0 with more than half the game still to play. Four unanswered. That's not a rough patch, that's a result.
James Hagens got Boston on the board in the third, forcing a turnover behind the Ottawa net before the puck ended up in behind goalie Samuel Ersson for an unassisted snap-shot goal at 3:30 — his second of the season, and his only real moment to point to. Nobody else on this roster showed up on the stat sheet in a way that mattered. All three stars went to Ottawa: Stützle (2 goals, 1 assist), Amadio (1 goal, 1 assist) and Batherson (1 goal). A clean sweep. That tells you who controlled this one from puck drop.
Look at the underlying numbers and it gets uglier. Boston was outshot 24-19 and coughed the puck up 21 times to Ottawa's 14 — that's not a possession problem, that's a care-with-the-puck problem. Both power plays finished 0-for-4, except Ottawa's penalty kill somehow scored and Boston's power play didn't. Jeremy Swayman stopped 20 of 24, which on most nights is a fine shift in net; on this night it was nowhere close to enough.
The quiet game belongs to JJ Peterka, the big trade addition this summer, who finished with zero shots on goal in over 15 minutes. Boston gave up a first-round pick and a conditional 2028 first to get him from Utah — and fittingly, Utah Mammoth is exactly who's up next. Fraser Minten, fresh off a seven-year extension, had a quiet but tidy night: 58.3% at the dot, one of the few Bruins who didn't look buried.
Boston drops to 2-2-0 and now trails Ottawa 1-0 in the season series. Next up: Thursday, October 8th, 7:00 PM ET, at home against Utah. Reset the shape. Try again.
