People are checking off pre-Christmas lists at this time of the year.

The Ottawa Senators have their own to-do list, which has nothing to do with gift shopping.

As they continue to steamroll back into the conversation in the NHL Eastern Conference, the Sens are ticking boxes left and right.

Winning divisional games? Check.

Taking the special-teams battle night after night? Oh, yeah.

Finding ways to win instead of ways to lose? Check.

Keeping goals-against down, with superior goaltending? Check. Hello, Cam Talbot.

Despite a furious push by a desperate Red Wings team Saturday afternoon, the Senators rode their torrid power play and opportunistic penalty killing to a 6-3 victory. Incredibly, five of Ottawa’s goals were on special teams, either a man up or a man down.

It was Ottawa’s fourth straight win over Detroit and pulled the charging Senators to within two points of the Red Wings in the Atlantic Division.

With 30 points in 30 games (call it a poor man’s .500: a 14-14-2 record), the Sens drew even with Buffalo and Montreal in the standings, heading into the night games.

Senators head coach D.J. Smith took ever-so-small satisfaction from beating a division rival, before turning his mind to Sunday’s game in Minnesota.

“I guess for a second,” Smith said, when asked about the special significance of beating Detroit. “But at the end of the day, you’ve got to get every point you can, we’re grinding.”

The Red Wings, a pleasant surprise to start the season, have lost five straight and eight of their past 10. The Sens are 8-2-1 in their past 11. The two teams meet twice more over the next two weeks.

By the end of the afternoon, the Sens owned the NHL’s third-ranked power play, at 28.8 per cent, strutting their stuff with three goals on five opportunities. Drake Batherson, with his seventh power-play goal, and Thomas Chabot, his fifth, got the power play rolling. Batherson now has 10 on the season and Chabot, seven. Batherson also scored a sharp-angle goal, the only five-on-five goal for the visitors.

The day belonged to the special teams.

“Clearly, they’re feeling it,” Smith said of his power-play unit. “And it’s a good thing to have.”

This was a very evenly played game, tied 2-2 after two, until Ottawa’s power play took over.

Claude Giroux scored the game winner on a man advantage with Brady Tkachuk causing havoc in front of the net after a missed shot through the legs. Giroux beamed with a smile after his 13th goal of the season. He wasn’t even on this first unit until Tim Stützle got hurt.

“Early in the season, we weren’t winning these games,” said Giroux. The veteran conceded the Sens didn’t have their game going in the first 40 minutes but closed with a solid third period.

Later in his postgame interview, Giroux added that there are no cliques in Ottawa’s room, just a bunch of “clowns” who come to the rink, have fun and then get down to work.

“One of the reasons we’re starting to win games,” Giroux said, “is that we’re playing for each other.”

Just to round out the special-teams fun, the Sens put a dagger into the Wings with back-to-back shorthanded goals. Parker Kelly delivered a perfect pass to Tyler Motte for the tap-in on the two-on-one break. And then Austin Watson scored into an empty net, to run the score to 6-3.

Talbot stopped 29 of 32 Detroit shots for his fourth consecutive win and five of his last six starts.

Although it might have been expected that Talbot would play against his former team in Minnesota Sunday, Smith said he left it up to his goalie, who opted for “whatever is best for the team.”

Smith decided what was best was beating a divisional rival and keeping a win streak going.

Onward to Minnesota, where Anton Forsberg is expected to start in goal against the Wild.

Depth at forward

You can talk about the Senators’ top-end forward depth, but sometimes it just stares you in the face.

This struck me as I sat in the press box ahead of last Wednesday’s game against the Montreal Canadiens, looking at the rosters on the game notes.

Going into that game, the Senators had five forwards with 20 points or more, led by Tkachuk’s 31 (which would grow to 33 by night’s end). Stützle, Alex DeBrincat, Giroux and Batherson were all in the mid- to high-20s – DeBrincat had three assists against Montreal to push his season total to 27 and Batherson was one and one, rising to 26 points, tied with Giroux. Stützle missed the game because of injury.

By comparison, the Habs had two players with 20 or more points, Nick Suzuki (29 at the time) and Cole Caulfield (25).

The story line played out that night as Ottawa’s forwards led the way with three goals, two on the power play, in a 3-2 victory.

On Saturday, the Senators rolled into Detroit for yet another Atlantic Division game, against the Red Wings. Although the Red Wings have four players with 20 or more points, just two are forwards – wingers Dominik Kubalik and David Perron.

Such is Ottawa’s forward depth, the Senators have been able to survive the loss of their top two centres, Josh Norris and Stützle, both of whom are on the road to recovery. Stützle could be back as early as next week. Norris is back skating with the team and should play early in the new year.

Two third-line wingers have also been out – Mathieu Joseph and Motte – and yet the Senators continued their winning ways. Motte returned on Saturday, and got on the scoreboard.

DeBrincat ran his consecutive games point streak to eight games, with three goals, 10 assists in that stretch. Even when he doesn’t score, DeBrincat gets on the scoresheet.

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