At long last, the 2025-26 regular season finally arrived for the Ottawa Senators. The first game of the new season offered as a tough road game against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Heading into Tampa, the Senators would be without both forward Drake Batherson and defenseman Tyler Kleven. Both Batherson and Kleven went to IR on Monday, and were not able to play. Newly acquired Jordan Spence was also a healthy scratch. In the first game of the new season, the Senators refused to quit.
The Senators defeated the Lightning 5-4 at Benchmark International Arena to start the season off 1-0-0.
The game immediatelly started rough for the Senators. After Dylan Cozens was called for a holding penalty 4:45 into the game, Oliver Bjorkstrand scored on the powerplay. Then 1:25 later, Brayden Point scored to extend the Lightning lead to 2-0 seven minutes into the game.
After the Lightning scored two goals seven minutes into the game, Dylan Cozens and Nikita Kucherov each tallied a powerplay goal to make it 3-1 Lightning heading into the first intermission.
After a rough first 20 minutes to start, Artem Zub got the Senators back to within one-goal with scoring 42 seconds into the second period. Then with under five minutes remaining in the period, Shane Pinto scored to tie the game heading into the second intermission. Zub had a beautiful long pass to set up Pinto for the goal.
It was a stalemate throughout the third period, until Pinto delivered in the clutch. With 1:47 remaining in regulation, Pinto scored his second goal of the game to give the Senators a 4-3 lead for their first lead of the game. Claude Giroux iced the game with an empty-net goal. Giroux's goal was big because Kucherov scored his second of the game with under 15 seconds remaining to make it 5-4 game, but it was too little too late for the Lightning.
Pinto, Zub and Brady Tkachuk each recorded a three-point game while Jake Sanderson recorded a two-assist game. Linus Ullmark finished with making 20 saves to have now won five consecutive season openers.
The Senators will return to action on Saturday night when they take on the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers at Amerant Bank Arena with a 7 p.m. ET puck drop.
The Panthers are 2-0-0 this season with both wins being decided by one goal. The most win was a 2-1 win tonight against the Philadelphia Flyers. Last season, the Senators won two of the three games in the season series against the Panthers, but the one loss Ottawa had was a four-goal loss in Florida.