Senators Put on Nightmare Performance Against Wings

After taking two points in Motown on Friday night, the Senators would do the opposite at home on Halloween.

On the back end of a home-and-home, the Senators were back in town to host the Red Wings on Halloween night.

Fittingly, it was a scary start for the home team.

For the third time in four periods, Cody Ceci found himself in the penalty box and the Senators found themselves down a man. After being on the penalty kill five separate times in Detroit on Friday night, Ottawa would be doing themselves no favours giving the visiting Wings more time on the man advantage.

The penalty would prove to be costly.

As Justin Abdelkader stood in front of a heavily screened Craig Anderson, Tomas Tatar wired a wrist shot past the blocker of the Senators' netminder.

The Wings were up 1-0.

After two unsuccessful power plays in the first period, the Senators failed to score on yet another in the second frame, making it seven straight kills for the Red Wings.

On every one of Ottawa's power plays, they dominated in the Wings' end. One of the two minute advantages actually saw the puck stay in Detroit's zone for the full 120 seconds. The passing was beautiful and the puck retrieval after a shot attempt was urgent and effective.

Yet, still no goals.

After a questionable goaltender interference call which saw Petr Mrazek stick out his leg and clip an oncoming Chris Neil, the Wings were back on the man advantage. Henrik Zetterberg would find Gustav Nyquist for a redirection in the slot and the Ottawa penalty kill would concede their second power play goal of the game.

It was then that the Senators' top three production players had seen enough.

A poised Mark Stone started the play by calming down a blocked shot and passing back to Erik Karlsson in his office, where the two-time Norris champion would walk across the blue line and fire a shot through a maze of players. The puck bounced off a Detroit defensman in front of the net and fell right onto the stick of Kyle Turris. The man with six goals already would make no mistake hammering it home into a wide open cage.

The goal was Turris' 100th career tally. He was absolutely on a roll.

The Red Wings saw no enjoyment in a Senators comeback, though.

Right off a faceoff in the Ottawa end, Jonathan Ericsson wired a slapshot that would hit Jared Cowen in the stomach and ricochet into the net past a screened Anderson.

Then the game got kind of ugly.

Less than a minute into the final period, Dylan Larkin skated around Karlsson with ease and juked past a pokechecking - for some odd reason - Anderson, jamming the puck into an open net. The secret book on how to score on Anderson still remained a single page with the word "wraparound" on it.

Minutes later, Danny DeKeyser walked in on a 3-on-1 and wristed a shot into the top corner.

Despite Ottawa's inevitable loss, fans wouldn't go home completely depressed. Mark Stone and Bobby Ryan still had goals to score.

With four minutes left, Stone snatched the puck out of midair in the slot, walked in and snapped one past Mrazek, who was hung out to dry by both his defensemen.

Seriously, who in the world though this guy was going to be just another sophomore slump? Crazies, that's who.

Then, former fourth-liner Shane Prince found a wide open Bobby Ryan in the slot, and just like he's done in the past three games, Ryan made no mistake and banged home his fourth of the season.

Despite a respectable effort to tie the game in the final seconds, the Senators came out of the home-and-home with the Wings taking two of four possible points.

Sens Hero: Kyle Turris

Before being traded to Canada's capital, during his rookie years in Phoenix Turris struggled only scoring 19 goals in four seasons with the Coyotes. Now in his fifth season with Ottawa, the 26-year-old has 89 goals in a Senators uniform and got his 100th tonight. It's been a delight to witness him turn into a bonafide No.1 centre over the years. Oh, and he's still yet to miss a game in five years.

Sens Zero: Dave Cameron

I think we've all had enough of Chris Wideman sitting in the pressbox alongside Chris Phillips, exchanging stories of the last time they remembered actually playing in an NHL game. The third pairing experiment of Cowen and Borowiecki hasn't worked. It's been 11 games and it's time to get the 2014-15 AHL's best defenseman into the mix. One of the two must sit out.

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