When you can't score goals and rely on goaltending and timing to win games (or not win them), you are playing with fire.

Such is the case with the Ottawa Senators this month, and while they have come away with the two points on more than their fair share of occasions, you are not going to win them all. When you get four straight power plays in the first 35 minutes and the only goal is a shorthanded Ryan Suter marker, a win might not be in the cards.

However, despite another game where they scored just one goal in regulation, they banked a point and were centimeters away from coming away with another win on overtime as Mike Hoffman fired a shot high off a feed from Jean-Gabriel Pageau on a 2-on-1.

Hoffman would have liked that one to make up for the Suter goal, which saw the backchecking winger check nothing but air as Suter shot home the rebound from about 5 feet away.

Kyle Turris continued to be clutch, scoring the tying goal early in the third while taking a shift with the fourth line for his team leading 7th goal of the season.

Meanwhile, on the OT winner by Matt Dumba, all three Senators were guilty of watching Mikael Granlund carry the puck and left the other two Wild players open, and Dumba dove through the slot to whack home the centering pass past Craig Anderson.

With the Senators dressing seven blueliners, Marc Methot left the game early, which was pretty devastating even though they still had six dressed. Finding a replacement on the top pair isn't easy, and Freddie Claesson isn't ready for that role even if he is the best option. Claesson hasn't impressed me in this stint, and in my mind he hasn't done enough to unseat either Chris Wideman or Mark Borowiecki for a top 6 role when everyone is healthy. The Senators knew this was a possibility, and more likely a probability, and they didn't do enough to create an insurance policy. Hopefully Methot isn't out long and he can get back as early as Tuesday in Philadelphia.

I am all for cutting down on the chances and goals against, and I don't necessarily know that Guy Boucher has pulled the reins on the transition game, but playing lower event hockey has certainly made things less exciting, win or lose.

This team is too talented to be 0 for forever on the power play, especially at home. Getting traffic is one thing, but having shooters missing wide by feet and then having to go back to their own end after failing to keep it in at the far point is counterproductive. Maybe focusing on getting shots through for screens, tips and rebounds instead of huge windups that sound hard when they hit the glass would be a better strategy.

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