Takeaways: Ottawa Senators deliver Travis Green's birthday wish by beating Chicago Blackhawks

Senators 6, Blackhawks 4

All Travis Green wanted for his birthday on Saturday was a win.

“A win would be nice,” Green said before the game.

It wasn’t easy, but the Ottawa Senators head coach had his wish delivered on his 55th birthday as his club pulled out a 6-4 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks in front of 18,254 in a matinee game at the Canadian Tire Centre.

Tim Stutzle had a three-point effort for Ottawa, including a shorthanded goal, while David Perron scored twice. Captain Brady Tkachuk, Tyler Kleven and Fabian Zetterlund also chipped in with goals as the Senators extended their winning streak to three straight.

Leevi Merilainen made 20 stops for his fourth win of the season in a game where the Senators outshot the Blackhawks 18-3 in the third period.

“It’s good to get two points,” Perron said. “We’ve played good hockey overall. There was a time and a tipping point, I felt, that we almost kind of started going the other way in this game even, but we grabbed it back.”

AFTER FURTHER REVIEW

Video replay officials at the National Hockey League’s situation room in Toronto were kept busy by this contest. The Blackhawks challenged three times for goalie interference and were successful twice.

Fans were sideways midway through the second period, when Ottawa’s Dylan Cozens had a goal called back for interference. Referee Beau Helkidis initially confirmed a goal, then announced that it hadn’t actually counted. That brought the boo birds out.

“I’ve seen it on TV, but I haven’t seen it live,” Green said. “I felt bad for him, but I felt bad more for us.”

You win some, you lose some.

Blashill found that out the hard way in the first period, as the Senators pulled out to a 1-0 lead. You don’t see two challenges by the same team in the same period very often, but that was the case in this one.

Kleven opened the scoring at 6:36 of the period when he fired a shot that found its way through Chicago netminder Arvid Soderblom for Kleven’s first goal of the season.

Successful on their first challenge earlier in the period, the Blackhawks claimed Tkachuk had run interference on this one as well, but they lost this appeal.

“Tkachuk’s presence in the crease did not constitute goaltender interference,” the NHL said in its decision.

Goalie interference is always a flip of the coin at the best of times.

“It was just a little confusing,” Stutzle said. “It just felt like every goal was a challenge.”

No kidding.

Only 2:57 into the game, it looked like Chabot had set up Stutzle for a goal. However, it was ruled that Soderblom couldn’t get across the crease because he was being interfered with by Zetterlund.

“Zetterlund had a significant presence in the crease and made contact with Soderblom that impaired his ability to play his position prior to Stutzle’s goal,” the NHL’s situation room said.

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS

Given all the chaos, it was hard to keep track of what goals counted and which ones didn’t. We’ll forgive anybody who lost track and Perron thought it was a “good point” when it was suggested that he might have wondered if he should have held off celebrating goals.

Through 40 minutes, the Senators and Blackhawks were tied 3-3. Ilya Mikheyev’s second of the game tied it up for Chicago after Tkachuk gave his club a brief 3-2 lead.

Stutzle scored his 16th at 9:55 of the second period, beating Soderblom shorthanded moments after the officials had Ottawa fans up in arms by calling back Cozens’ effort at a goal.

That gave the Senators a short 2-1 lead, but Andre Burakovsky tied it up for the Blackhawks at 10:02.

Mikheyev had previously tied it up 1-1 by using his speed to dodge past Senators defenceman Nick Jensen and beating Merilainen with a shot through the five-hole.

The Blackhawks were without injured star centre Connor Bedard, so this was an opportunity for the Senators to take advantage, but Chicago also came into this contest with an 8-1-1 record in their previous 10 games in Ottawa.

SHOWING CONSISTENCY

Coming off a 4-0 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday, the Senators have matched a season-high with three straight wins. The last time that happened was from Oct. 23 to Oct. 27.

“I know they’re a good hockey team,” Chicago coach Jeff Blashill said. “They’re on the verge of being a really consistent playoff team.”

Consistency is what has eluded the Senators this season.

Linus Ullmark, coming off his first shutout of the season on Thursday, will make the start in net against the Bruins on Sunday.

It makes sense to have Ullmark face his former team, a key Atlantic Division rival of the Senators.

Merilainen came into this game with four straight losses, all on the road. His last win was at home against the Bruins on Nov. 13. He wasn’t great against the Blackhawks, but made the necessary stops.

bgarrioch@postmedia.com

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