Ottawa Senators lose to Philadelphia Flyers, finish night without captain Thomas Chabot

The Ottawa Senators didn’t only lose two points on Saturday night.

They may have lost their captain as well.

The Senators felt their share of pain in the City of Brotherly Love as the Philadelphia Flyers halted their own nine-game winless skid to start the National Hockey League season, dropping Ottawa 3-1 at Xfinity Mobile Arena.

To make matters worse, Ottawa captain Thomas Chabot didn’t finish the game.

He left the bench briefly in the second, but returned and completed that period. However, Chabot, who was seen shaking his hand in the first period, didn’t play in the third. That’s another big blow to the blue-line.

The Senators are expected to get Jake Sanderson back from an unspecified lower-body injury on Wednesday for their next game against Brady Tkachuk and the Florida Panthers at home, but the club has used 10 defencemen already this season and losing Chabot for any length of time would be a hit.

Only Drake Batherson scored for the Senators on Saturday, and goaltender Linus Ullmark saw his six-game winning streak end.

The Senators made a hard push in the third period to try to tie it up and had the Flyers on their heels. The inability of the Ottawa power play to come up big turned out to be costly, though, especially on a big opportunity with five minutes left in the third.

The Flyers had posted a 0-6-3 record before facing the Senators, the worst start in Philadelphia franchise history.

The Senators came into this game with six straight victories over the Flyers, dating back to March 11, 2025. This was the second time in two weeks the Senators had faced Philly, with Ottawa knocking off the Flyers 2-1 in its home opener on Oct. 8.

Senators head coach Travis Green was asked on Saturday morning if he had given any thought to starting backup Samuel Ersson in net against his former Philly teammates.

“No,” Green said with a smile. “We don’t play our goalies based on whether they played in the city or not.”

There was no reason to take Ullmark out of the net. He went into the game with a 1.20 goals-against average and a .949 save percentage and had been one of the NHL’s best goalies to start the season.

Ullmark also carried a 9-2-2 career record against the Flyers into the night, along with a 2.55 goals-against average and a .919 save percentage.

He was trying to set a franchise record with his seventh straight victory to start the season, but it wasn’t meant to be.

Trevor Zegras put the game away for the Flyers by scoring into an empty net.

The Senators weren’t sharp in the first 40 minutes and trailed 2-1. The shots were 25-15 for Philly, and the Senators hadn’t tested Dan Vladar nearly enough.

Matvei Michkov gave Philly the lead with only 1:27 left in the second on the Flyers’ third power-play opportunity of the night. He picked up a rebound and beat a sprawling Ullmark on the glove side.

Ottawa wasn’t sharp for large parts of this game. Unable to clear the puck out of their zone, the Senators turned it over, and Porter Martone tied it up 1-1 at 9:03 of the second period, tipping a pass on the doorstep. Ullmark had no chance.

The Senators hadn’t registered a shot for nearly nine minutes, but the first one they had on Vladar counted. Batherson scored his fourth goal of the season at 5:55 of the second period by one-timing a perfect saucer pass from former Flyers captain Claude Giroux.

That goal was Batherson’s 153rd of his career, moving him past Radek Bonk into ninth all-time for the franchise. Bonk, who scored 152 with the Senators, was decked out in Flyers’ gear in the stands as he watched his son, Oliver, on the Philly defence.

The Senators were looking for their seventh win in October for only the seventh time in franchise history. Of the six wins the club had recorded this month, four have been by one goal.

The Senators and Flyers were scoreless after 20 minutes in this one.

After a difficult first period, everyone was left feeling that the Senators would have to find a way to gut this one out. They were outshot 14-8 by the Flyers and outplayed in a lot of areas.

The Senators were forced to kill off two Philly power plays, and they relied heavily on Ullmark.

bgarrioch@postmedia.com