Senators rally past Blue Jackets for shootout win

Claude Giroux and Tim Stutzle each scored in the third period and again in the shootout to lift the visiting Ottawa Senators to a 3-2 victory against the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday night.

Anton Forsberg made 36 saves for the Senators, who had lost seven of eight.

Boone Jenner and Alexander Nylander scored, Johnny Gaudreau had two assists and Elvis Merzlikins made 34 saves for the Blue Jackets, who blew a 2-0 third-period lead and lost for the fourth time in the past five games.

The Senators began the comeback when Giroux scored at 7:25 to make it 2-1.

Boris Katchouk had the puck along the wall in the Columbus zone and he dropped a pass for Mark Kastelic at the top of the left circle. He drove to the net before making a shot pass to Giroux for the redirection into the net.

The Senators tied it 2-2 at 12:27 when Stutzle scored on a backdoor play.

In a matchup of the bottom two teams in the Eastern Conference, the Blue Jackets scored 15 seconds into the game, tied for the sixth-fastest goal to start a game in Columbus history, but neither team scored again until the third period.

The Senators tried to clear the puck along the wall, but Gaudreau intercepted it just in front of the blue line and passed the puck to defenseman Adam Boqvist. He quickly passed it to Jenner, who scored his 20th goal of the season on a one-timer.

Boqvist took a hit into the wall later in the period and did not return because of an upper-body injury.

The Blue Jackets were already missing forwards Yegor Chinakhov and Sean Kuraly, both of whom were injured in a 3-0 loss to the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday, but Kirill Marchenko returned after missing the last game because of an illness.

Nylander made it 2-0 with a power-play goal at 7:25 of the third period.

The Blue Jackets recalled Mikael Pyyhtia from Cleveland of the American Hockey League and he made his season debut.

—Field Level Media