In what was feared and pretty much expected, it was a perfect storm for a bit of a let-down game for the Ottawa Senators. Coming off a huge shutout win over the top team in the league, an eye toward the airport and a 4 day break, and a team coming into their building having taken a public tongue-lashing from their head coach after losing their fourth straight game.

And still, they came away with a point thanks to some third period heroics.

It certainly wasn't the sharpest the Senators have been this month, and give credit to the Flames, and especially their penalty kill, for keeping Ottawa at bay until they could find their feet and capitalize on a couple of turnovers in the second period. Micheal Ferland popped his own rebound after newly acquired Tommy Wingels blew a tire just outside the Calgary blue line and fanned on his attempt to get the puck deep, turning it over to Matt Stajan. The Flames transitioned nicely, and after dropping the puck to Ferland, Stajan drove to the net, put a little bit of interference on Marc Methot, allowing Ferland to find a hole to open the scoring after a poor rebound placement from Mike Condon on the initial shot.

Sean Monahan doubled the Flames lead with just under three minutes left in the second, after Condon stopped Dougie Hamilton in close and seemed to have the rebound smothered until the former Ottawa 67's forward pulled it back between his legs and flipped it over the prone Senators netminder. Evidence of how un-sharp the Senators were was the fact that when Monahan shot the puck, there were 3 Senators within a stick length of him and nobody could get there quick enough.

The Senators could have cut their losses but they fought back in the third period. Wingels made up for his earlier gaffe by scoring his first as a Senator, deflecting home a shot from Freddie Claesson to get Ottawa within 1, two minutes in to the third. The pace picked up in the waning minutes, and with the goalie out Chris Wideman played the hero and knotted the game with just a shade over a minute remaining. Wideman fired a one-timer off a nice pass from Mike Hoffman to at least earn the Senators a point.

Late in a frenzied overtime, where Ottawa had possession of the puck for most of the first 4 minutes, Erik Karlsson got hemmed in along the boards skating through the neutral zone and turned the puck over, sending Johnny Gaudreau and Mikael Backlund in alone 2-on-Condon. Three passes later the Ottawa goalie was down & out, with Gaudreau staring at almost 24 square feet of open net from about 6 feet away. Karlsson will get some flak for the turnover, especially since it was his errant shot that led to the OT winner the other way against the Blue Jackets, but credit Gaudreau for a quality play to dive and poke-check the puck away from Karlsson, and he is the guy you want carrying the puck in that situation every time. It just didn't work out this time around.

This was one the Flames simply needed more, and although the game was pretty evenly played throughout, the Senators didn't play a bad game but simply weren't as on point as they had been in many recent games.

Condon, who aside from the Columbus game on Sunday (that he should have never played in) had a tremendous month, didn't have much chance on the Monahan goal and no chance at all on the OT winner.

They will take this point and run, showing some resiliency in fighting back from a hole when it would have been easily understandable to rest on the laurels of having points in their last five games and phoning in the last 25 minutes. Getting points in games where you aren't at your best are as important as points when you have your "A" game, sometimes even more so.

Now they head to the All-Star break to recharge for the stretch run, in great shape in the standings, with a return of Craig Anderson on the horizon.

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