OTTAWA — A sign of how valuable Kraken defenseman Brandon Montour has been this early season was him suiting up for action here barely 72 hours after the birth of his daughter on the other side of the continent.

Montour, of course, had skipped the team’s prior game in Toronto to make a Wednesday dash from there to Seattle for the birth of his daughter, Maison, before a 2,500-mile turnaround back here on a flight through Chicago for Saturday night’s contest against the Senators. His lineup presence still wasn’t enough though, as the Kraken took a 3-0 loss, again waiting too long to generate any serious offensive thrust against an opponent playing its second game in as many nights.

Adam Gaudette and Brady Tkachuk scored Ottawa goals in the first and second period, respectively, against Philipp Grubauer while Tim Stutzle added an empty netter in the closing minutes with the goalie pulled for an extra attacker. And that was all Senators goalie Anton Forsberg needed to record his second shutout in as many starts against the Kraken – blanking them here at the Canadian Tire Centre as well some 11 months ago.

Montour has averaged more than 23 minutes of playing time per game to lead the team and was a positive boost offensively and defensively for a squad already missing injured two-way defenseman Vince Dunn.

For his part, Montour said the nearly 5,000 miles of travel amounted to a scramble.

“I got the call and I was on the quickest (private) plane that I could get back home,” he said. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it for the birth. But a few hours later, I was there.”

He added: “There was a lot going on,” he said. “I kept tabs (on the Toronto game) but obviously it would have been nice to have been a part of that one.”

The Kraken, now 5-6-1, looked sloppy at times in the early going of that Toronto game and started out largely the same way against a Senators team beaten by the Rangers in New York on Friday night. Grubauer, making his first start in more than a week, did his part to keep things close but also failed to corral a puck in his crease on the first Ottawa goal just under six minutes into the contest.

Gaudette eventually fired the loose puck into the net after it had been poked free. The referee initially waved the goal off – ruling Grubauer had been interfered with after freezing the puck – but the Senators challenged the call and wound up getting it overturned.

The Kraken managed just a lone shot in the first half of the period, then got four on an ensuing power play flurry and appeared to be turning things around as the period ended. Grubauer helped keep it a one-goal game by intermission with a nice kick save off Thomas Chabot on a snapper from the high slot with just more than four minutes to go.

But then, after Montour drew a high-sticking penalty early in the second period with some good work along the side wall, the Kraken caught a bad break on the ensuing power play that may have altered the game’s course.

With the Kraken pressuring in Ottawa’s end, Ryker Evans hit Jared McCann with a solid cross-ice pass to the left faceoff circle. McCann leaned into a wrist shot from 30 feet out and had Forsberg cleanly beaten only to have the puck strike the inside of the far post and stay out of the net.

Just six minutes later, Tkachuk put Ottawa up 2-0 midway through the game by re-directing a point shot by Jacob Bernard-Docker. Though the game was still somewhat up for grabs by then, the Kraken’s road seemed thoroughly uphill.