Ottawa falls to Detroit after being outshot 13-2 in a sluggish opening period

Nobody predicted the Ottawa Senators would be perfect.

After opening the season with two straight wins, the Senators learned the hard way Tuesday night that you can’t rest on your laurels, dropping a 5-3 decision to the Detroit Red Wings at Little Caesars Arena.

Trying to start the season with a three-game winning streak for the first time since the lockout-shortened 2012-13 campaign, the Senators got off to a poor start and didn’t have enough finish.

William Eklund, Drake Batherson and Tim Stützle were able to solve Detroit goaltender John Gibson. Senators backup goaltender Samuel Ersson suffered the loss in his first start with the Senators, but he didn’t have much in the way of help.

Eklund scored his first goal in an Ottawa uniform and pulled the Senators to within a goal with 9:30 to play in the third period.

“I didn’t like the first half of the game,” coach Travis Green told reporters in Detroit. “We looked a little tired. There are games where we’ve been tired, and won, but I don’t think we played smart enough when we were tired.

“We gave some pucks away, threw some pucks away in the middle of the rink, and didn’t gain a lot of traction in the first period. That’s why we got behind.”

The comeback stopped there. The Senators missed a golden opportunity on a late power play and went 1-for-5 with the man advantage in this game.

Former Senators winger Alex DeBrincat got payback with two goals and a three-point night.

The Senators looked like a team playing its third game in four nights after victories over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday and the Boston Bruins on Monday.

Trailing 4-2 after 40 minutes, there were some fireworks before the teams went to their dressing rooms. Ottawa pest Ridly Greig had the Wings incensed with a hit on DeBrincat. Centre Shane Pinto and Greig were among those who dropped the gloves during the ensuing scrum. The Senators started the third period with a power play.

“I didn’t like the hit,” said Detroit forward Dylan Larkin, who started the melee. “Cats our best player. I just thought it was late and he couldn’t see it coming. You don’t want to see it. I went in there and it was nice to see the other four guys on the ice in there with me.”

“Nowadays, you can’t lay a hit without a scrum,” Batherson told TSN’s Dustin Nielson after the second period. “It’s kind of expected. We’ve had some battles with these guys over the years.”

It was Batherson who brought the Senators within two goals with his second goal of the season at 6:08 of the second period. That sparked the Senators to have a much better effort to end the period.

The Red Wings were skating circles around the Senators when they opened a 4-1 lead with three goals in a span of 2:29 in the second period. Justin Faulk scored at 4:30, while Viktor Arvidsson added a power play goal at 2:01.

The Red Wings have had a messy start to the season. Forward Dylan Larkin made his Detroit debut after requesting a trade in the off-season.

It didn’t take long for Larkin, who was stripped of the captaincy, to turn the boos into cheers. He was jeered every time he touched the puck in the first period, but the reaction quickly changed when he beat Ersson at 13:14.

The Senators opened the scoring, but that was about the only highlight in the first period. They were outshot 13-2 in the first 20 minutes, couldn’t get any pressure in the offensive zone, and didn’t win any battles.

“Not good,” said captain Thomas Chabot. “We didn’t start playing right away and we only played about half the game. If you don’t show up from the start, you’re not going to win.

“We’ve got to look at this. We were still in the game and we felt like we could have gotten a point.”

Ottawa was trailing 2-1 and was lucky it wasn’t worse.

“Overall, it was a terrible period for us,” Stützle said after the first period. “Too many turnovers, too many soft plays, and they’re a good team over there.”

Stützle opened the scoring with his third goal and fifth point in three games. On an odd-man rush that he created, he skated by a Detroit defender and then fired it by Gibson with a wrist shot.

That came at 2:44 of the first period, and it was the only highlight.

“We just have to play our game,” said Eklund. “We did that in the second half, but it was too late.”

The jury is still out on Ersson.

Linus Ullmark suffered an ailment in the team’s 4-1 victory over the Boston Bruins on Monday at TD Garden and wasn’t available to suit up. Boston’s JJ Peterka crashed the crease.

After replacing Ullmark in Boston, Ersson made his first start in the club’s net. He spent last season with the Philadelphia Flyers and is trying to show he can find his game.

Ersson, 26, finished with a 14-11-5 record with Philly last season, but posted a .870 save percentage and a 3.12 goals-against average. He stopped eight of nine shots against the Bruins.

The expectation is that he will play 35 games this season, so he will have to play with more consistency than he did against the Wings because Ullmark has never played more than 50 times in a season.

Ersson didn’t look good on the goal by DeBrincat at 3:16 of the first period that tied the game 1-1. Ersson gave up a bad rebound and then got caught on the far post as DeBrincat fired the puck home.

The Senators called up goaltender Jonas Johansson from their American Hockey League affiliate in Belleville to dress as the backup against the Red Wings.

bgarrioch@postmedia.com