Senators vs. Maple Leafs: Stephen Halliday's Late Winner Caps Thomas Chabot's Debut as Captain

The penalty clock on Kirill Marchenko's high stick had just hit zero when Fabian Zetterlund let one go from the left face-off dot. The rebound spat out to the side of the Toronto net, and Stephen Halliday, who grew up in nearby Ajax, Ontario, was right there to jam it in at 9:46 of the third period.

That goal held up, and the Ottawa Senators opened their season with a 3-2 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday night at Scotiabank Arena. Ottawa was the last team in the league to play a game this season. New captain Thomas Chabot made sure the wait felt worth it, scoring a goal and adding an assist in his first game wearing the C.

Three Periods, Three Different Hockey Games

The first period belonged to Ottawa, and so did the opening goal. With 1:09 left before intermission, Shane Pinto's shot caromed off Claude Giroux in the slot, and Chabot, who had jumped into the play, buried the loose puck at the side of the net. The Senators had already lost defenseman Jake Sanderson, who left at 12:45 of the period and did not come back, so their captain was suddenly carrying an even bigger share of the blue-line minutes.

Then the second period flipped the whole script. Auston Matthews needed just 33 seconds to tie it, redirecting a Morgan Rielly point shot. Giroux took a slashing penalty at 6:40, and 26 seconds later Marchenko, traded to Toronto from Columbus on the eve of the season, took a Darren Raddysh feed, stepped to his backhand and beat Linus Ullmark for his first goal as a Maple Leaf. Toronto outshot Ottawa 14-4 in the frame and, for a stretch, looked like the team that had been playing all week.

Ottawa's answer came on the rush. Tim Stützle lifted a pass over a sprawling Rielly on a 2-on-1, and Michael Amadio redirected it past Sergei Bobrovsky at 12:40. Less than a minute later Ullmark produced the save of the night, kicking out a stretched right toe to rob William Nylander after he had stepped around Dylan Cozens and deked past Jordan Spence. Ullmark was refreshingly honest about it afterward. "The one on Nylander was 90 percent luck," he said, "but there's no quit and sometimes that's the little edge you need."

The Turning Point: Two Minutes Toronto Gave Away

Marchenko went from hero to cautionary tale in a little over a period of game time. His high stick on Stützle at 7:46 of the third put Ottawa on the power play. The Senators never did score with the extra man (they finished 0-for-4), but Halliday's goal came at the exact second this one expired, and Jack Roslovic added a tripping minor just six seconds later.

Toronto coach Jim Hiller did not sugarcoat it. "Then just some careless penalties. I thought the two penalties in the third period really hurt us, took our momentum away and gave them some life and they pushed hard," he said. He also pointed to the other end of the ice: "We need to finish some of the chances we had. We had enough chances to win the game, no question."

From there, Ottawa smothered the game. The Senators outshot Toronto 16-5 in the third, killed off a late William Eklund interference call and gave the Leafs nothing clean in the final minutes.

Captain Chabot and the Ullmark Show

Chabot's line tells you a lot: one goal, one assist, a plus-2 rating, seven blocked shots and 27:06 of ice time. With Sanderson out after the first period, that workload was not a luxury, it was a necessity. Chabot, who was named captain earlier in the week, summed up the night neatly. "They got a little bit of momentum in the second and I thought the third period was our best. We played exactly to the way we want to play, we didn't give them anything. Our penalty kill stepped up big time," he said.

Ullmark finished with 27 saves on 29 shots, a .931 save percentage, and his best work came during Toronto's second-period surge. Ottawa coach Travis Green noticed. "I thought Linus was outstanding, especially when we were defending tired," Green said.

Giroux added two assists and won 10 of his 12 faceoffs, the kind of quietly dominant night that never trends on social media but wins hockey games. Halliday played only 10:07 and still scored the winner.

For Toronto, Matthews and Marchenko scored, and Bobrovsky stopped 26 of 29 shots. Nylander picked up an assist and saw the other side of Ullmark's luck firsthand. "I think we had a lot of grade-A chances (in the second)," Nylander said. "Ullmark played very well as well. You have to give it to him." John Tavares, who assisted on Marchenko's goal, also played his 600th game with the Maple Leafs, becoming the 26th player to reach that mark with the club.

Stats That Matter

• 16-5: Ottawa's shot advantage in the third period, a complete reversal of Toronto's 14-4 edge in the second.
• 7: Blocked shots by Chabot alone. The Senators blocked 20 as a team to Toronto's 10.
• 29-18: Ottawa's edge in hits. The Senators played heavy all night.
• 56.9 percent: Ottawa's faceoff win rate, powered by Giroux and Stützle.
• 1-for-4 vs. 0-for-4: Toronto scored on the power play and still lost the special-teams war by taking the costlier penalties.

What It Means

Ottawa is 1-0-0 and heads to Boston on Monday night. The obvious storyline to watch is Sanderson; Green said the team would know more in the coming days. If Chabot has to keep logging 27 minutes, that is sustainable for a night, not a season.

Toronto falls to 1-2-0, and all three games have been decided by one goal, all of them at home. The Leafs dropped their opener 3-2 to Montreal, then beat the Islanders 2-1 for their first win under Hiller before this one slipped away. Nashville visits Tuesday. A team that scored only six goals in three games cannot afford to hand opponents free power plays in the third period.

Late Arrival, Loud Entrance

The Senators waited out the whole first week of the season and then walked in like Kramer through Jerry's door: late, a little chaotic and impossible to ignore. Green summed it up best. "Just a real good game," he said. "I loved our third."

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Game details from the Associated Press; postgame quotes and team notes as reported by NHL.com.