Canadiens defence is a no-show as Senators waltz to pre-season win

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The best thing you can say about the Senators’ 7-2 win over the Canadiens Friday night in Ottawa is that it was an exhibition game and didn’t count in the standings.

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But it did count for players who are battling for a roster spot or playing time.

As the score would indicate, it wasn’t a good night for defence. Jake Allen, who may be busy at the start the season if Carey Price’s recovery doesn’t accelerate, was supposed to play the entire game, but he gave way to Kevin Poulin in the third period after giving up six goals on 29 shots. He didn’t get much help on two first-period goals, but he didn’t look ready for prime time as he surrendered four goals in the second period. Alex Formenton led the Senators with two goals, while Nick Paul, Austin Watson, Egor Sokolov, Drake Batherson and Josh Norris each added one.

“We had a slow start but we played better in the second half of the first period. But in the second, we made some mistakes and we gave up a bad goal,” coach Dominique Ducharme said. “It was hard to come back after that, but I wanted to make sure we didn’t quit.”

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David Savard, who is being counted on to take up some of Shea Weber’s quality minutes, was minus-4, while Ben Chiarot was minus-3. Rookie Kaiden Guhle had some good moments, but he was also minus-3, which makes it easy to send him back to junior.

The line of Jonathan Drouin, Christian Dvorak and Josh Anderson failed to duplicate their offensive heroics earlier in the week against Toronto, but Dvorak did score a power-play goal. Alex Belzile had the other Montreal goal.

Defenceman Chris Wideman helped his cause by assisting on both Montreal goals. He has an offensive upside that could win him a job. He doesn’t block shots and he doesn’t hit, but then again, he wasn’t on the ice for any of the Ottawa goals.

“As a defenceman, I know that anything can happen when you get the puck through to the net, so I just try to get it in deep,” said Wideman, who matched Dvorak with a team-high four shots on goal.

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The Senators took a 1-0 lead before the game was four minutes old after Sami Niku showed why the Winnipeg Jets were willing to release him. Niku was at his best when he eluded a defender at the blue line and pinched in to create a scoring chance.

But the knock against Niku is that he doesn’t pay attention to defence and he was at his worst when he was caught deep in the offensive zone when the puck was turned over and Chiarot was hung out to dry as he faced a 2-on-1 break that ended with Shane Pinto setting up Watson for the goal.

Belzile got that one back when he buried the rebound of a shot by Wideman, but Ottawa regained the lead before the period ended when Norris’s shot deflected off Formenton as he battled Savard in front of the net.

Niku left a trail of blood on the ice after he had his face planted into the glass by Norris late in the first period. Niku went through the concussion protocol and did not return. There was no penalty on the play.

The Canadiens and the Senators will meet again Saturday at the Bell Centre (7 p.m., TSN, RDS, TSN-690 Radio) 98.5 FM).

phickey@postmedia.com

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