Tkachuk on Blackhawks: 'I guess we took them lightly'

The Ottawa Senators saw their five-game winning streak come to a halt with a 5-0 loss to the lottery-bound Chicago Blackhawks on Monday.

The Senators missed an opportunity to close within one point of the Pittsburgh Penguins for the final wild-card spot in the Eastern Conference, remaining three points back with one more game played.

“Not good. Unacceptable," Senators captain Brady Tkachuk said Monday's loss. “I guess we took them lightly. I guess we forgot that’s where we were at not too long ago.

"Nobody was good tonight, including myself.”

The Senators outshot the Blackhawks 12-3 in the first period, but entered the second down a goal. The team unraveled completely in the second period, allowing three goals less than 11 minutes to open the frame. 

Ottawa racked up 47 penalty minutes in the loss, with Tkachuk accounting for 17 of them as he, Austin Watson and Mark Kastelic all received 10 minute misconducts late in the third period,

"Right from the get-go, just attention to detail, odd-man rushes that we gave up … it was everything that we hadn't done in the previous five games, we did tonight," Senators coach D.J. Smith said. "It's tough to explain how well we've played to come out and do this. But you've got to turn the page quickly.

"We were feeling so good playing at home, and then to come out here -- just no rhythm, no feel, team wasn't prepared. That's on me. My job is to get them prepared and to push them every day, and we weren't ready to play today."

Cam Talbot was initially scheduled to start Monday's game for Ottawa but was a late scratch due to a lower-body injury. Mads Sogaard started instead, allowing the five goals on 21 shots.

"I told him throughout the game, 'None of this is your fault. We just completely [hurt] you,'" Tkachuk said of Sogaard. "Right from the start, the way we played, we completely left him out to dry. That's just never what we want to do as a team.

"All the boys we have, [they've] stood on their heads, made big saves and stole us games throughout this whole year. It's honestly unacceptable that we just leave him out to dry like that."

The Senators will resume their playoff push on Thursday against the Seattle Kraken before closing out the week with back-to-back games against the Vancouver Canucks and Calgary Flames.