Bang! Yakemchuk blast helps Senators past Flyers in home opener

Carter Yakemchuk’s blast from the point on the Ottawa Senators’ fifth man advantage of the night would be the game-winner in a 2-1 victory against the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday at Canadian Tire Centre.

Nick Cousins scored and Linus Ullmark made 28 saves for the Senators (3-1-0), who sit atop the Atlantic Division, tied with the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers.

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Vindicating frustrated fans screaming “shoot!” during much of the Senators’ five power plays — or at least that’s how they’d see it — Yakemchuk, from the dead-middle point, hammered a Claude Giroux pass over the right pad of Joseph Woll, who couldn’t catch up to the 90.1 mile-per-hour blast. Coach Travis Green admitted Yakemchuk wasn’t at his best at times on Thursday, fumbling some pucks. He whiffed on a dump-in and a couple easy passes. Though, Yakemchuk seemed to have more confidence to try and create on Thursday, once venturing deep into the Flyers’ end to take the puck to the net in the second, and he might have been the better of the two quarterbacks, including Thomas Chabot, on the man advantage.

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The one goal Ullmark allowed was a stinker. There was no one between him and Trevor Zegras when the forward fired a wrist shot from the top of the right circle into the goaltender’s breadbasket. The only player on the ice that saw it squeak through Ullmark’s padding was Matvei Michkov, who promptly buried it. When there were bodies in front, Ullmark was strong, fighting through screens to blocker pucks into the corner. He made a key glove save on a Sean Couturier solo rush in the first, and he tracked a Tyson Foerster power-play wrister around Travis Konecny, who jumped while skating over the top of the crease, in the third. Ullmark made four stops in the final two minutes of the game, surviving numerous scrambles at the goal mouth. Without him, the Senators get stomped. Ullmark is 3-0-0 with a .956 save percentage to start the season.

That’s quite the tidy 11 minutes of ice time for Cousins. It was a great effort in front of the net on his goal, slightly pushing off defenceman Cam York to create separation and then getting his blade in the perfect spot behind his back to tip a Tyler Kleven point shot that had already deflected once of a stick in the high slot. Staying out for the ensuing face-off, Cousins cheekily baited Michkov into taking a tripping penalty seconds after the puck was dropped, giving the Russian an initial shove before somewhat selling the call. Cousins saw a handful of shifts on the top line with William Eklund out, making tricky passes under sticks and between skates to keep the puck moving up ice on the rush. He hit Drake Batherson with a nice pass in stride through the neutral zone in the third for a scoring chance, with Batherson firing a shot off Woll’s dome.