Both teams will be looking for their first win since the Olympic break Saturday night when the Ottawa Senators visit the Toronto Maple Leafs.
The Senators at least have one point after a 2-1 home overtime loss to the Detroit Red Wings Thursday in their first game since the break.
The Maple Leafs have dropped both their games since the break after a 5-1 road loss to Florida Panthers on Thursday in a game between teams struggling to reach the playoffs.
This Battle of Ontario also is crucial because both Toronto and Ottawa sit among a cluster of teams that are currently outside of a playoff spot.
The Senators started to make a run by winning five of six before the break, so being held to a point on Thursday was a setback.
“I definitely felt we deserved a better result,” said Brady Tkachuk, who scored Ottawa’s goal. “I thought we did a lot of great things tonight. Their goalie (John Gibson) stood on his head, had a great game, and yeah, it’s just unfortunate we didn’t get the two points that we wanted.”
Tkachuk’s goal gave Ottawa the lead late in the first period.
“I thought our start was phenomenal,” Ottawa coach Travis Green said. “We got right to our game, and Detroit’s a good team, they’re going to push back. They raised their game after the first period.”
Ottawa’s Tim Stutzle, a game-time decision because of illness, played and earned an assist. He missed practice on Wednesday and the morning skate on Thursday.
The Senators are opening a five-game road trip in Toronto.
This will be Ottawa’s second visit of the season to Toronto. The Senators lost 7-5 to the Maple Leafs on Dec. 27.
The teams will conclude the season series with two games in Ottawa, including the final game of the season on April 15.
If Green was pleased with the Senators’ start on Thursday, Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube did not like his team’s first period in which they fell behind 3-0 while allowing a short-handed goal.
“It’s a tough start, right? Get down three and a short-handed goal is tough,” Berube said. “We know Florida, and knew they would push hard like that.”
Toronto crept to within 3-1 early in the third period, but Florida clinched the win with two empty-net goals.
“I mean, I don’t think concern is the right word,” Toronto captain Auston Matthews said. “I just think we need more desperation. More fire. Especially to start games. We know the position that we’re in, and we need to be the more desperate team every single night.”
Matthews earned his 350th career assist on John Tavares’ goal 47 seconds into the third period and moved past Tim Horton for 10th on the Maple Leafs’ all-time assist list.
The Maple Leafs were unable to sustain a strong effort over three periods, which also was a problem Wednesday in a 4-2 road loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning.
“It’s the same thing as last night’s game in Tampa — you need it for 60 minutes,” Berube said. “Especially now. We can’t take any shifts off. You’ve got to weather the storm. We didn’t do a good enough job of weathering the storm in the first. I thought the second and third, we played our game. I thought it was a competitive game. Even at the start of the game, we were competitive. But they had more jump and energy than us, won more races, hemmed us in our zone too much.”
Toronto leads the season series with Florida 2-1.
