Senators cap off an eventful week feeling good about the direction of their season

NEW YORK — It was an eventful weeklong stretch for the Ottawa Senators on and off the ice.

On Thursday night, general manager Steve Staios put out a statement denying social media rumors spreading about goaltender Linus Ullmark’s leave of absence for personal reasons, and then his team lost 8-2 at Colorado. Another defeat on Saturday extended the skid to four in a row and seven of nine, and by the time they played again they were in last place in the Atlantic Division.

Beating Vancouver on home ice Tuesday night brought a welcome respite. Then on Wednesday night, they routed the reeling New York Rangers 8-4 on the road at Madison Square Garden in a dominant effort that should boost Ottawa’s hopes of climbing back in the playoff hunt.

“We need to win these games,” said captain Brady Tkachuk, who scored his 200th regular-season NHL goal and had three assists. “These are must-win games in our world, and we’re getting to that point that you just can’t waste an effort.”

The Senators moved five points back of the second and final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference, in which all 16 teams are separated top to bottom in the standings by just 15 points. Coach Travis Green, who played more than 1,000 NHL regular-season and playoff games, isn’t sure he has ever seen it this tight — and it has affected how he navigates a schedule that’s condensed by the Olympic break.

“There’s going to be a lot of ebbs and flows,” Green said. “There’s going to be parts of the year where things are going well, and for me it’s always about resetting. Whether you win or lose and being honest about your game: how did you win, how did you lose, why’d you win, why’d you lose and what makes your team effective. I think our team has a really good idea of how we need to play to win.”

That was on display early against the Rangers, when Ottawa skated circles around an opponent missing franchise goalie Igor Shesterkin and top defenseman Adam Fox because of injuries. It looked like anything but a tired team that traveled late night and into the early morning hours facing a fresh, rested opponent.

“Honestly, what might’ve helped us is playing last night and not having much of a break and just getting right into it,” Tkachuk said. “I thought that was probably the best first period I’ve seen from this team and something that we know that we’re capable of doing and something that we need to make more of an identity every start to every game.”

Playing with a lead helped netminder Leevi Merilainen settle in on the second half of his personal back to back. He finished with 18 saves, giving up a handful of goals long after the game was out of reach, but teammates saw another impressive showing from their backup who has been pressed into starting nine games in a row with Ullmark away.

“He’s had to play a lot lately,” top-line forward Dylan Cozens said. “He’s been doing really good back there. It’s a tough workload, a couple back-to-backs, so that’s definitely not easy. But he’s been there for us.”

Green thinks his team is better than its record and acknowledged that can be frustrating for players, who had largely preached patience even when the results weren’t coming. Stringing together a couple of victories could be the turning point in that mentality and putting a sharper focus on urgency.

“There was a lot of games we put in a lot of great efforts and didn’t get the result that we wanted — that’s always kind of a jab at the confidence,” Tkachuk said. “Just needed to get back to basics. Everything obviously feels better when you start winning games, and for us it’s just about chipping away and not focus too much on the big picture but just focus on winning the day.”