Two teams riding momentum face each other in an East-West showdown Saturday as the Ottawa Senators pay a visit to the San Jose Sharks.
The Senators, who have earned points in eight of their last nine games (5-1-3), started a seven-game road trip Thursday with a 3-2 victory over the Anaheim Ducks. Ottawa rallied from a 2-1 deficit as Drake Batherson netted the game-winning goal with 1:58 left in regulation.
With the win, Ottawa’s 10-6-4 mark after the season’s first 20 games is the team’s best start to the season since 2016-17, when the Senators jumped out to a 12-7-1 start.
“We all feel like we’re going good right now,” forward Fabian Zetterlund said after a team practice Friday in San Jose. “We fit each other really well, and we just got to continue to do that.”
Saturday will be the first time Zetterlund plays in San Jose since the Sharks dealt him north of the border last March, just before the trade deadline.
Batherson’s seventh goal of the season was also his 19th point, which ties him with Tim Stutzle (10 goals, nine assists) for the team lead in points. Center Shane Pinto, who scored Ottawa’s first goal Thursday, shares the lead with Stutzle in goals scored.
San Jose needed a shootout to get a 4-3 win at home Thursday over the Los Angeles Kings. Philipp Kurashev scored in regulation and was also the only one to beat Kings goalie Anton Forsberg in the shootout to secure the second point for the Sharks.
Coach Ryan Warsofsky’s team is 6-0-1 in its last seven home games. Before the Kings game, Warsofsky told reporters he had some concerns about the way his team had played in previous third periods. While the Sharks did give up the game-tying goal in that period Thursday, the coach said afterward he saw improvement.
“We need to get better in some areas, 100%, but so does every other team in this league,” Warsofsky said.
Second-year forward Macklin Celebrini got an assist in Thursday’s win, and the 19-year-old has at least a point in 14 of his last 16 games. The budding superstar leads the team with 13 goals and 18 assists. League-wide through Thursday’s games, he’s tied for fifth in both goals and assists, and his 31 points are third in the NHL, trailing only Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon and Edmonton’s Connor McDavid.
Center Will Smith also had a helper Thursday. The 20-year-old has points in seven of his last nine games and ranks only behind his fellow second-year teammate with seven goals and 13 assists.
Sharks goalie Yaroslav Askarov stopped 31 shots Thursday to get his sixth win in his last seven games. The Russian netminder, a 2020 first-round draft pick by Nashville, has a .952 save percentage in that span. He’s played in 13 games this season, a total that already matches the number he played for the Sharks last season.
Ottawa goalie Linus Ullmark made 23 saves in Thursday’s win against the Ducks. The 32-year-old Swede is undefeated in seven starts (7-0-0) against San Jose with a .928 save percentage and a 2.16 goals-against average.
