Ice Breaker: Ottawa wins the Brady grudge match, Knuble doubles up

Ottawa spent all night yelling at Brady Tkachuk, and the Panthers spent all night yelling back. Brady got his goal, the Senators got the other five, and Florida left with 44 penalty minutes, the most by any team in a game this season by our count.

The Panthers get roughly 20 hours to cool off before an early-evening visit to Pittsburgh, on the second half of a back-to-back.

The games

Senators 5, Panthers 1

Brady scored on the power play, nine seconds after Artem Zub went off for tripping, at 10:00 of the first in his first game back in Ottawa, and that was the last positive development of the evening. Tim Stützle tied it on a power play at 14:13.

Claude Giroux and Shane Pinto scored at even strength in the second, and Warren Foegele and Stephen Halliday finished it in the third.

Akira Schmid, starting with Jacob Markstrom injured, made 25 saves on 30 shots behind defense pairs that left him exposed.

Linus Ullmark stopped 17 of 18 before he left early in the third with an apparent injury, and Samuel Ersson finished it. Pabs has the full recap.

Pabs: They came to Ottawa to win a fight and forgot there was a hockey game attached. Matthew Tkachuk's assist stretched his point streak to nine games by our count, and that's about the only thing from last night worth keeping.

Lind's read: Florida had 19 shots and won just 37.7% of its faceoffs. Sam Reinhart played 15:54 without a shot, which tells you how little time the top six spent with the puck and how much they spent chasing it, or chasing somebody.

Sully's chirp: Senators fans threw Brady's old jerseys on the ice. First time anybody in that city got rid of a Tkachuk contract without retaining salary.

Flyers 3, Sabres 1

Cole Knuble scored twice for Philadelphia, at 14:49 of the first and 3:03 of the third, and Oliver Bonk set up both. Trevor Zegras added a power-play goal with 43 seconds left in the first. Jason Zucker got one back for Buffalo on a power play late in the second.

Dan Vladar stopped 27 of 28, including six of seven while Philadelphia was shorthanded.

Mattias Samuelsson fought Hunter McDonald with under five minutes remaining and collected an instigator penalty and a game misconduct for the trouble.

Sully's chirp: Tage Thompson played 20 minutes, put three shots on net and finished minus-2. Buddy, I'm begging you, the goalie is the guy in the big pads, you shoot around him.

Three stars of the night

1. Cole Knuble, PHI: two goals on four shots in about 10 minutes of ice time.
2. Dan Vladar, PHI: 27 saves on 28 shots.
3. Tim Stützle, OTT: the tying power-play goal and the assist on Halliday's.

Lind's number of the night

66.7%. That's Buffalo's penalty kill through 10 games by our count, and Zegras beat it again last night. When you kill two of every three, each trip to the box costs you about a third of a goal.

Sully's take of the morning

Look, Ottawa had the volume, but Buffalo had the fight of the night. Samuelsson went after McDonald down 3-1 with under five minutes left and came away with 17 penalty minutes. That's a defenseman trying to wake up his bench. The bench hit snooze anyway. Grade: B for the effort, D for the timing.

And in Ottawa, Sam Bennett and Ridly Greig went at 2:17 of the third with the game already gone. Two guys with a long history of mutual irritation finally had a free evening.

Tonight

Twelve games on the schedule. The Panthers are in Pittsburgh at 7 p.m. ET on Scripps and SN-PIT, the back end of a back-to-back, with Markstrom out and the goaltending decision still to come. The Penguins are 3-6-1 and 1-4 in their last five with a minus-10 goal differential, per NHL data.

The books call it close to a coin flip: Penguins -115, Panthers -105, total 6.5. (21+. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.)

Ottawa turns around on a back-to-back as well, at home to San Jose. The one to watch is Carolina (8-2-1) at Edmonton (7-1-1) at 9 p.m. ET, two of the league's best records meeting on Edmonton ice. Rangers–Leafs and Vegas–St. Louis round out the good stuff.