Tkachuk's final shift demonstrates Sens heart in Carolina victory

Holding onto a 3-2 lead with 1:13 to play, and looking for their first win since Nov. 13, the Ottawa Senators' captain stepped up.

With a Senators power play winding down, and the Carolina net empty, Ottawa had a faceoff in their own zone. The Sens won the draw but lost possession moments later. Sebastian Aho gathered the puck and fed Teuvo Teravainen in the slot. Brady Tkachuk blocked it.
The Canes collected the loose puck and re-entered the Ottawa defensive zone. After circling through the offensive zone, and with less than 20 seconds to play, Teravainen unloaded a shot from the high slot that was blocked by Josh Norris. The first man to the puck to clear was Tkachuk.
The Sens captain followed his clearing attempt down ice to maintain pressure before circling back towards his own zone as Carolina attempted one last rush. After a pass was nearly disrupted by Drake Batherson at centre ice, Vincent Trocheck tried to drop a pass to Aho near the blue line but guess who was on hand to break it up and clear the zone to secure the win? Tkachuk.
"Brady exemplified it with how hard he came back and stole those two pucks at the end," Senators head coach D.J. Smith said.

Commitment. Effort. Guts. Willingness. The Sens had it all, and more, down the stretch Thursday night.
After building a 2-0 lead on the back of two Alex Formenton goals, the Canes scored twice in a 1:45 timespan to make it a 2-2 game with 6:13 to play.
"It's hard to believe it's 2-2 after the whole game," Smith said. "They get that power play and score, they get another one right behind it and it'd be easy for us to sit here and say "here we go again."
Instead, Smith sent his top line of Batherson, Norris and Tkachuk over the boards. The Sens had the lead again 19 seconds later.
"I put the Norris line back over and they took the game over," Smith said. "That's what people are going to see and it's something they can rally behind. That's a legitimate line that is going to be good for a long time and they came of age tonight for me.
"On the road, took it over, found a way to score."
Thursday night epitomized the heart and soul of the Senators. Smith said earlier in the day his team needed to play shift by shift and not think about the result at the end. They did just that.
In the first period alone the Senators blocked 11 shots and, despite giving up 20 shots in the period, had a 1-0 lead after the first period.
"We were boxing out, blocking shots the whole game," said Anton Forsberg, who made a career high 47 saves in the win.
All in all, the Sens blocked 21 Carolina shots. Ottawa's 341 blocks this year are the fourth most in the league but their 16.21 blocks per 60 minutes is the second best in the NHL.
"We were battling really hard," Forsberg said. "We were sacrificing ourselves for each other and we held each other accountable."
While Tkachuk's will to clear the puck twice inside the final minute was on full display, Chris Tierney said that the willingness to do whatever it takes to win was evident up and down the lineup.
"Guys were blocking shots, doing the little things, chipping pucks out, taking hits, giving hits," he said. "[We were] doing a lot of the little things to win."