Mark Messier - Fashion Plate And Man Of Many Hats

Yes, in my spare time I occasionally look at Mark Messier pictures on the internet. It's sad really.

(Via Tumblr - that's not my text on the picture)

Senators Season Verging Into Absurd, Surreal Territory

We’ve seen our share of gutsy teams in Ottawa since 1992, the year this team was reborn after an equally gutsy campaign by the expansion forefathers who heard “it can’t be done” more than most of us can remember. The 96-97 team with their little Buddha statues and sticks-in-the-toilet routine are still beloved by those who were there to see it.

The ’98 team who defied the “experts” and upset the heavily favoured New Jersey Devils in the first round were just as memorable. The organization soon morphed into a highly-skilled but Velveeta soft team that couldn’t handle the Maple Leafs when it mattered most, until Brian McGrattan KO’d Tie Domi and cured the existential crisis of thousands of neurotically damaged Ottawa fans.

Then there was last year’s group of kids, picked by most to be the dregs of the Eastern Conference. They somehow made it to the playoffs, but all it took was a never-ending rollercoaster of comeback victories, slumps, streaks, someone named Erik Karlsson, and ultimately, a Game 7 loss to the Rangers in the first round. But it was the most inspiring group of players to wear the Red and Black since the days of Steve Duchesne and Ron Tugnutt. They were more like a gang than a hockey team.

After last night’s strangely emotional win over the Rangers, with Craig Anderson’s year nearly destroyed by an out of control Chris Kreider slamming into his leg, this hobbled and broken team is clearly making the city proud.

You could hear it in the arena as the crowd tried to resurrect a stunned team in the immediate wake of seeing Anderson, their MVP, get carried off the ice on one good leg. You could see it when Ben Bishop dramatically waved off Kreider seconds after the victory was sealed. You could see it on Kaspars Daugavins’ face as he barked his way down the Senators bench after accidentally scoring between Henrik Lundqvist’s legs. The whole team was in genuine hysterics as the Kanata crowd went to gong-show levels. Even Paul Maclean allowed himself a little smirk, knowing his boys were about to “get away with one”.

Meanwhile, John Tortorella’s reddening face looked like a slapped arse.

He knew his team was beaten by a group of guys who simply wanted it more than the Rangers did. He could look down his bench and know that only Ryan Callahan played as hard as Daniel Alfredsson or Zack Smith did in that game. Other clubs will both admire and hate the Senators for nights like this. Everyone loves an underdog and knows that this organization is going through hell with these injuries, but it also makes them bad when their superstars get beaten by a bunch of AHL’ers named Dziurzynski, Gryba and Wiercioch. Who?

It’s strange to see so many headlines about Alfredsson possibly leaving town once the “inevitable” Ray Bourque syndrome comes into effect. What I saw from the captain was complete focus, and after the Jakob Silfverberg and Daugavins goals, a beaming smile, like the kind of smile a Dad would have on his face. I see a guy who loves his role on this team and in this city. I don’t see a guy who will jump ship even if the team starts tumbling down the standings. I know he says “never say never”, but I got my money on the never.

But is this all just a temporary dream... a group of players with their backs to the wall giving their one last defiant push before reality sets in? Maybe.

Maybe not.

I have to admit I thought it was over when Marc Methot tried to help Anderson up off the ice and the goalie collapsed like he was Mike Modano getting tipped over in a stretcher back in the 90’s (remember that?). Even before Anderson, I, like everyone else, thought the season was over after arriving at the Toronto airport from a week in Cuba without internet only to be greeted by a giant television screen showing me Karlsson’s Achilles tendon being severed over and over again. People brushed past me oblivious as I stared at that screen, my carry-on barely dangling from my fingers and my new tan draining back to white.

Yet these guys just keep at it, chipping away a period at a time. This is a case of stats not being able to tell you the whole story. It’s the intangibles - that near-mythic entity that modern hockey writers all too often spurn for cold hard numbers - that you have to follow if this team, this season, is to make any sense at all.

I don’t pretend to know how this team wins games anymore. I just enjoy watching it.

And I’m betting you do too if you’ve come here to read this.

Sens Rolling The Dice With Rookie Defenders

For the Ottawa Senators, it’s nice to be on the other side of controversy right now. For all the goaltending doubts, the concern over the youth on defense and the standard opening night fears, the Senators calmed their fans down considerably with a lopsided victory in Winnipeg.

For Jets fans, their handwringing has only increased. According to Hockey Hall Of Fame writer Roy MacGregor, a lot of people in the ‘Peg already feel disillusioned – and that’s in a market where the honeymoon has just begun. Even the champagne is still bubbly.

With old pal Alexei Kovalev back in town with the rising Florida Panthers, some Senators fans may be reminded of some recent bad history and feel comforted that those days now seem so distant. For the most part, they are.

Yet the path to the Senators downfall is pretty clear, even to casual observers. And it’s not the goaltending (refreshingly).

It’s the defense – a top heavy group that’s thin and inexperienced once you get past the top four. What would happen if another D-man went down to injury? Or two? That’s not an unrealistic scenario. In fact, it’s likely, especially in a compressed schedule.

When you look at teams that have traditionally had success in the playoffs, they have depth and experience on defense, with people ready to step in when injuries strike.

Los Angeles refuted that theory last season when they had two greenhorns in Alec Martinez and Vyacheslav Voynov playing all 20 games in the Kings march to the Stanley Cup. Martinez wasn’t really a rookie, having played 60 games in 2011, but the point is made.

So it can be done, but you have to think Ottawa is going to address this issue with a trade before we get into the nitty gritty of the schedule in February.

Losing Jared Cowen was a big blow but the trade for Marc Methot looks to have filled that void in the short term. Methot is stable, experienced and big enough to protect his new partner Erik Karlsson. He’ll be a big part of this defense for years, especially with Sergei Gonchar likely leaving after this season.

The next pairing of Gonchar and Chris Phillips is a coach’s dream second duo. They’re both leaders and capable of playing big minutes in all situations.

Everything after that is a crapshoot – mind you sometimes a roll of the dice pays off handsomely. And it could again. But is Ottawa really going to contend with two rookies, Patrick Wiercioch and Mark Borowiecki, along with AHL journeyman Andre Benoit when games get ramped up and they have to battle the Penguins, Bruins, Rangers and the Flyers?

I have my doubts despite Wiercioch looking like he’s ready to play some games and Borowiecki on track to be a Chris Neil clone on defense. Mike Lundin may help when his finger heals but he doesn’t exactly have the reputation of being battle hardened veteran. Those Eastern Conference playoff rounds were tough, mean and bloody and they’ll get harder with Rick Nash barreling down the wing and Sidney Crosby and Nathan Horton seemingly healthy again. Despite the Flyers losing their first two games of the season, they look dangerous and well-rounded. The Rangers and Bruins play harder than anybody and the Penguins are lethal offensively.

The Senators just can’t match that pedigree despite having the reigning Norris Trophy winner and a deep crew of forwards who can score a lot of goals. That top-four on D looks good when healthy but breaking in two rookies could soon turn into three and it may not even stop there. There just doesn’t seem to be any insurance and that’s a dangerous way to drive.

Youth on a hockey club is great and exciting for the fans, but when it gets ugly out there – and it will – you win with veterans. You win with guys who send their dentists Christmas cards and can actually grow playoff beards.

Bryan Murray, an old vet himself, surely knows this and will move when the time is right.

It's Over For The Senators ... And Maybe For Alfredsson

New York 2 Ottawa 1 (Rangers win series 4-3)

It's officially summer in Ottawa.

In the end, the Senators just didn't have enough pucks to break down the near impenetrable Rangers defence and their horrifyingly dominant goalie Henrik Lundqvist, who put in a performance worthy of Patrick Roy and Dominik Hasek.

The days ahead will be all about what went wrong for Ottawa and there will be some long knives pulled out of a few bony backs and bodies pulled out from under the buses, an annual April tradition in these parts (as it is in every NHL city but one).

Since you asked, if I had to throw a few stones myself, I'd be questioning why rookies like Mark Stone and Jakob Silfverberg were put in the lineup late in the series ahead of guys who have been with the team all season. Stone made one nice play on a big goal but both rookies didn't have an impact when they weren't struggling. How much energy could a guy like Kaspars Daugavins, universally adored in that dressing room, have given this team? Who knows. It probably wouldn't have made much of a difference because the Senators lost this series to a better team. The Rangers were better in the regular season and they were good enough to fend off a Senators team that had nothing to lose in the post-season.

There were other problems for Ottawa, most notably Jason Spezza and Milan Michalek getting checked and hounded into insignificance almost every single game and Nick Foligno's unfortunate goalie interference penalty in Game 6 that thoroughly killed the momentum they had in the early going, bad call or not. In my opinion, it was a turning point in the series and Foligno deserved the call. You could tell by the look on his face and the mocking hands in the air as he was slightly pushed from behind.

I'm sure Senators fans will wholeheartedly disagree with me, as they spent most of their energy trashing CBC personalities and blaming the referees for everything that went wrong. Sure, some calls were brutal, but it's always been that way in the NHL. One of the first things my father taught me was that referees were a sort of sub-human species who had it out for whatever team you were cheering for. Canadian kids get taught that before they learn about Santa Claus. Not much has changed in 2012 except everyone can now go on Twitter and flamethrow everybody and everything they see.

Well, I didn't intend to let this post get so negative that quickly, but that's Stella Artois and some shattered nerves for you.

When all the crying is done, the fans should look back on this season as a major step forward for this organization and along the way, people were treated to some of the best hockey they've seen in almost five years.

The Senators happened to come up a goal short in the last game, but so have hundreds upon hundreds of other NHL teams over the years. Most of them survived.

The real focus now turns to Daniel Alfredsson and whether or not he has played in his last NHL game. My hunch is that he comes back for another season but might need a month of healing to come to that decision.

There's too many good nights ahead for this young team to willingly choose to walk away from it, but if he does, he went out as the best Senator on the ice, just like he's been most nights of his career.

Black Aces will be back after a couple days, maybe the weekend, and we'll see how the lay of the land is then.

For all my readers, thanks for another season of sticking around ... for the weird, for the mundane, for all of it.

Alfredsson Boils Over As Ottawa Gives New York Game 6... Sens Back In Underdog Role For Game 7 At MSG

New York 3 Ottawa 2 (Series tied at 3)

We all knew what Daniel Alfredsson was thinking as he utterly destroyed his stick on the bench after a tough 3rd period shift. But you have to wonder what was going through Jakob "Greener Than Grass" Silfverberg's head as he sat on the bench next to this suddenly maniacal Swedish legend and watched him stomp a water-bottle to death with his skate once the stick was taken care of.

Silfverberg was just thankful for the opportunity to play in an NHL post-season game while Alfredsson was just angry at seeing another opportunity slip away while he sat on the bench during a Senators power-play.

It was a disappointing night for Ottawa's star players with Jason Spezza playing his worst game of the series and Milan Michalek not helping him out much either. Coach Paul MacLean didn't use Spezza much in the 3rd, and that's understandable, but the coach also has to answer for changing a winning lineup just to insert a rookie like Silfverberg. Not that the young Swede was bad (in fact he was more noticeable than some other Senators) but you have to wonder what it felt like for players like Kaspars Daugavins and Bobby Butler who have been in Ottawa all year to suddenly get pushed aside for a rookie who hasn't been in that dressing room all year long or even worn the logo yet. It was an interesting chemistry experiment during a critical game. Not sure why it was needed, but you can't blame that situation for the loss.

There's no moral victories this late in a series. The Senators had their foot on the Rangers throats after the first period with a chance to clinch and they bungled it away with a sloppy second period that saw New York get two power-play goals and a heartbreaking late even-strength goal by rookie Chris Kreider.

Some thought the goalie interference call on Nick Foligno was soft, but to me it was clear that Foligno was pulling that "oops, didn't see you there" act at exactly the wrong time and he got dinged for it like he has all season. Brad Richards scored on that same man-advantage and it caused Ottawa to lose all the focus they had in a great first period. If Foligno is lucky, it won't be looked upon as the turning point in the series for the Rangers.

Not only was it a wasted opportunity for Ottawa, but it could have been their last one now that they have to go into a seventh game in New York with the momentum out of their hands.

You can go ahead and point to Ottawa's great record at MSG and their season long ability to bounce back from tough games, but as it stands, the Senators chances are 50-50 at best and in reality probably a little less than that. Ask any player and they'd tell you they want to play that seventh game at home with the last-change and their own fans giving them energy.

What does work in Ottawa's favour is that pressure is still on the Rangers to win this series. Never mind that the Senators have been the better team through six games. If the Senators lose Game 7, the press will be relatively easy on them and the exit stories will be all about how this team overachieved and almost knocked off the giant of the East if it weren't for a few bad bounces (or the best goalie in the world - there's no denying that). If the Rangers fall at MSG, guys like Larry Brooks will be all too eager to start carving the Blueshirts and everything from the Rangers system to their star players like Marian Gaborik will be called into question. Not so with Ottawa.

If you think about it, would the Senators be able to do this any other way? A home victory in Game 6 would have been way too easy on everybody. It's almost like this team needs the odds against them to play their best hockey. They looked terrible in the second period but got into the third with everything against them and they actually made a go of it in the last few minutes with that late goal and another opportunity in the last few seconds.

But that's just theory. Tell this stuff to Alfredsson and he might stomp your balls off if he's in the wrong mood. He was beyond upset for about 5 minutes in that last frame because he knew his team had blown it. The underdog stuff is fuel for the young guys, but the captain has seen just about everything now and all he wanted was that win.

He still has a chance to get it on Thursday night and the two day break will give both teams more than enough time to prepare.

It's going to come down to goaltending and a little puck luck. All the Senators can do now is go to New York and put it all on the ice.

May the best team win.

Black Aces Senators 3 Stars

1. Chris Neil
2. Sergei Gonchar
3. Kyle Turris

Anderson Puts Rangers On Brink ... What Will Torts Do Now?

Ottawa 2 New York 0

The Ottawa Senators are one win away from upsetting the heavily favoured top Eastern seed.

Let that butterfly flap around in your head for a while. Then prepare yourself what could be a nerve-shredding couple of games, because, despite all the celebrating going on by Senators fans, the New York Rangers aren't dead yet.

That last win can be a bastard.

It's important to remember that the Senators, despite putting 30 shots on the net, only got one by Henrik Lundqvist. The Swedish King once again played like a champ with a .966 save percentage and a number of highlight robberies. Thankfully for Ottawa, their own guy was even better, which means he was absolutely perfect.

Craig Anderson has gotten downright nasty in this series and it looks like he might even be in the Rangers heads, if there's any room in there after god knows what John Tortorella has filled it with. The Blueshirts don't score much anyways but when you throw 41 pucks at a goalie and still lose the most important game you've played all year, it's going warp the mind of even the most hardened playoff vets like Brad Richards.

This series has been strange to watch because you see a Rangers team that has become so dogmatic in their defensive style of play that just one or two goals seems catastrophic to their fate. The Senators held a 1-0 lead off Jason Spezza's goal from the middle of the first right up until the last minute when Spezza again sealed the win with an empty-netter. The Rangers did look like they deserved a goal in that time but you never thought that either Richards or Marian Gaborik was going to take the game over.

The emotional push of the Rangers seems to come from their bench boss, Torts, but Ottawa's is spread around the lineup, whether it's Zenon Konopka again playing a critical role on faceoffs and the penalty-kill, or it's Spezza visibly shedding the weight of a whole city with a meaningful fist pump after his first goal of the series.

Even Ryan Callahan of the Rangers has been quiet since a great opening game at home. I'm hesitant to say that the Rangers are being held back by their total commitment to collapsing and blocking shots - it got them the Eastern crown, no small accomplishment - but Ottawa seems much looser out there and they don't tend to get down when something bad happens. They've gotten some questionable calls from the refs and go out and kill it off. Their power-play is absolutely brutal but they don't seem to go into a slump for the next few shifts like a lot of teams do.

After a regular season straight out of Fellini movie, the Senators have seen it all by now and the quietly efficient Rangers suddenly don't seem like such an unbreachable obstacle. It's as if the Senators don't get uptight because they know that someone will be the hero when they need it. It could be Kyle Turris, Erik Condra, Chris Neil... just go down the lineup right to the sixth defenseman. We've seen big plays from all of them.

You can't really say the same thing about the Rangers. Torts was chopping down the bench, sitting Artem Anisimov and playing Richards almost 25 minutes, about 4 more minutes than Spezza got in the game. Neil blew the hinges off the Rangers best player of the series, Brian Boyle, with a major hit in the second period and the big centre had to leave the game.

And the Senators have basically done all this without their heart and soul leader, Daniel Alfredsson.

Rumours are he may be good to go in Game 6 in front of the loudest fans of the playoffs. How much of a shot in the arm will that be for Ottawa? The Senators actually might have to rein themselves in a little so they don't go running around like adrenalin freaks for the first 10 minutes.

For all the excitement and hype Game 6 will have, the biggest hurdle remains the calm and collected Rangers who probably wouldn't change their game plan in any situation - unless Torts finally blows a circuit and chokes someone on the bench or begins swinging sticks at the fans. The Rangers coach has been completely under control so far but now that it's do or die for New York, expect him to play all his cards before this thing is through. A rousing, expletive filled pre-game speech may just be the start. As we learned from HBO, Torts knows words that even biker gangs wouldn't utter in each other's company.

The Senators could win this right away or they might not get another puck past Lundqvist. Both scenarios are completely possible and fans should be prepared for both.

Basically, hold on for dear life.

Black Aces Senators 3 Stars

1. Craig Anderson
2. Jason Spezza
3. Zenon Konopka

The Great Senators Family Group Pogo Of 2012

As any honest fan will tell you, whether it’s the Senators or another NHL team, they truly want to believe that the guys are all one big happy family, both on the ice and behind closed doors in that almost mythical “dressing room” where we suspect so much high drama plays out safely away from the cameras and notepads.

They want to believe that the coach is giving some Herb Brooks type motivational speech to a captivated team before every single period and rookies and vets alike are taping up damaged body parts just so they can play one more game, one more shift, like Jason Smith or Kirk Muller in old clips from Coach’s Corner.

The average guy who works 9-5 in some office and can’t stand the humourless, constantly throat-clearing and dandruff cloaked person in the cubicle next to him likes to lean back in his chair once in a while and try to imagine what it would be like cracking jokes in a stall next to Chris Neil and filling Jared Cowen’s skates up with shaving cream before practice.

For this average, possibly bored-stiff guy, his world is a little more tolerable because he knows that at least somewhere, some people are still paid to hang out like kids at summer camp, play a child’s game and skate heroically on the ice (and sometimes bleed) to the adoration of an entire country. Sounds a lot like that movie Youngblood – overly romanticized and dumbed down for the masses.

While most illusions have largely been stripped away by a cynical press and an overwhelming avalanche of social media that is completely pre-occupied by telling us just how barbaric and stupid hockey is (when they’re not telling us how greedy athletes are), there is still a little room left for the old-school sentimental hockey fan in all of us when you see a team like the Ottawa Senators battle back from preposterous levels of adversity to win a game like they did on Wednesday night, down 2-0 after the 1st period and in serious danger of falling into a 3-1 deficit in the series from which they would never be able to recover.

While it’s certainly more hip to talk about statistics, contracts and head-shots, nobody is really having much fun doing so, the same way nobody had fun listening to The Smiths and New Order for more than two awkward formative years in their life.

Luckily, the playoffs affords us some pure, visceral drama which doesn’t necessarily require another “ironic” Tweet or a blog post meant to show how much smarter you are than real hockey people.

You can watch Matt Carkner postpone his penalty box exit for just a split-second in order to surprise the Rangers defence by taking a long-bomb pass, stickhandling over the blueline and then dishing a perfect feed to a streaking Milan Michalek for the Senators first goal of the game which almost caved in the roof of the Kanata rink from the noise it created.

You can watch a quiet newbie like Kyle Turris snap a perfect shot over the once unbeatable Henrik Lundqvist’s shoulder for the overtime win and notice that the incredulous look on Turris’ face is pretty much the same look on yours at that moment – pure disbelief and awe.

If you’re a Senators fan, and you’re probably a raving lunatic of one if you’ve found your way to some obscure blog like this, you’re definitely aware of the whole “Family” theme happening right now, from the players only t-shirts to the message scrawled by an absent Daniel Alfredsson on the dressing room board that simply read “Do it for the family”.

But the cynic in you probably says “Well, all teams do that in the playoffs. Millionaire athletes acting out a cliché. What makes this team more of a “family” than the New York Rangers or Nashville Predators?”

All you have to do is take a look at the footage directly after Turris scored the overtime winner on Wednesday night. As the Senators bench emptied and the players gang tackled Turris along the boards, the whole team broke into a spontaneous “pogo” that was both ridiculous and wonderful to see. Here are twenty grown men with their arms around each other jumping up and down in unison with pure joy on their faces, something you might see in soccer or occasionally in the NFL, but never in the NHL. Until last night.

The crowd in Kanata was going so crazy that the players almost didn’t know what to do with themselves so they just jumped up and down like kids in their first hockey tournament.

For any fan, it had to bring a smile to your face. You can’t put a stat on it and you can’t break it down to make it boring. It’s just a moment that exists in its own vacuum. It’s the same as Zdeno Chara leaping through the air with a monstrously huge bear roar onto a pile of Senators players in 2003 after Chris Phillips scored that huge overtime goal against the Devils. Even if the Senators don’t win the series, people will remember the Turris goal as a great hockey moment, especially in an organization without a history of championships or many iconic goals such as that.

The contributions of certain players that some fans thought were “useless”, like Carkner and Zenon Konopka, have been inspiring to see. Carkner completely changed the tone of the series with his beatdown of Brian Boyle in Game Two and Konopka is just one of a whole group of third and fourth liners playing strong minutes for this team. Give a guy like Konopka a 45 second shift and tell him to scrape and scratch for every single inch of the ice in front of Lundqvist and you get it exactly like it should be done. These kinds of players don’t reveal their true worth in the regular season because there’s so much more room and less intensity. In the playoffs when every play is made in a tangle of skates and sticks, Konopka quickly becomes more valuable because he doesn’t rely on skating and finesse for his game. He’s built for chaos. You can add Jesse Winchester and Jim O’Brien to that list.

The fact that the Senators are giving the Rangers the fight of their playoff lives right now without their leader and captain Daniel Alfredsson is evidence enough that this team might really be a “family”, or at least as close a Senators team we’ve seen since the Cup run of 2007 or possibly even before that. Some might even make the argument this is the closest Sens team of all-time after so many come from behind wins during the regular season and their surprising climb up the standings after an abysmal start.

We don’t really know because we don’t sit in a stall next to Chris Neil and tease a rookie about his “physique chiselled out of marshmallows” or share a cold one after a tough loss trying to cheer each other up. Like the average guy at the office, it’s probably enough to imagine that it’s happening.

Clearly something is happening with this team. How far they can take it on guts and will alone will be a hell of a thing to watch.

Turris Buries One For The Ages

I have to say that tonight was the wildest and loudest Sens crowd I've heard in years. When the Senators were dying a slow death after going down 2-0, the deafening arena noise after that first goal was piss-your-pants frightening and I've no doubt that played a huge role in getting the player's legs under them for the rest of the night.

No time for a game recap tonight but we'll be back Thursday breaking down that crazed group pogo dance the Sens did after the Kyle Turris OT goal.

Whatever happens in this series, this clip will never get old...



Black Aces Senators 3 Stars

1. Craig Anderson
2. Sergei Gonchar
3. Kyle Turris

Fans Start To Bail On Spezza Too Early

Uh oh. Here comes the mob.

The Senators are only down 2-1 in their series against the best team in the Eastern Conference and already the fans have started in on Jason Spezza who is stuck at 1 point in the early going of what’s been a memorable playoff round.

Granted, Spezza has built up enough goodwill over the season to keep the trust of most fans but the call-in show on the Team 1200 after the game wasn’t very pretty and the schoolyard twitter bullies have stepped into their own little time-machine to travel to an era when it was fashionable in Ottawa to boo their franchise centre.

Please.

For some people, the Ottawa Senators only ever play against themselves. In this comfortable little fantasy world (where everyone wears “little white shorts”), it’s as if no other NHL teams exist. Ottawa is playing against the EA Sports computer and when the results aren’t positive, it must be because Spezza is “the dumbest player in the league” (that’s a real quote from a caller today), Milan Michalek is “invisible”, Craig Anderson isn’t a clutch player and Erik Karlsson can’t play defense.

In this wonderful headspace, it’s easy to forget that the Senators are playing against the best goalie in world, against the best defensive team in the East and against a head coach who has a Stanley Cup ring. And somehow, they’re only down a game in a series in which Ottawa has outplayed them two out of three nights.

For the love of God, fans in Toronto would crawl over a mile of broken glass on lovely Sherbourne Street just to be down 3-0 to the Rangers if it meant being in the playoffs.

In reality, this is a great turn of events for Ottawa. They’re right there with the New York – with a lucky bounce going the other way, Ottawa would be up 2-1 – and their best two forwards, Spezza and Michalek, haven’t even played their best game yet. At some point, those two will find a way and it just might put Ottawa over the top.

Spezza is second on this team in shots for the series with 9. That’s not a player who’s shrinking away under pressure. That’s a guy who is being checked to death by the Rangers but is fighting his way through it only to find a Vezina trophy winner smiling in his face.

It’s the same story every year in the playoffs. When you only have a few offensive weapons like Ottawa has, it’s easy for an elite opponent like the Rangers to shut them down. All their resources go into stopping Spezza, Michalek and Karlsson. Because of that, you often see third and fourth liners become playoff heroes because they’re the only players seeing the third defense pairing and weaker forwards.

True to form, Chris Neil scores an overtime goal in Game Two. Erik Condra has a goal and Spezza doesn’t.

There’s still time for Spezza and Michalek to make a difference in this series. For sure, they need to be better, in particular Michalek, but three games is an awfully quick turnaround for fans to start throwing guys under the bus.

They should be happy with a team that’s playing a near perfect brand of underdog hockey that could even see them topple the Eastern favourites. If you didn’t have Spezza, the Senators would already be golfing by now and you’d have nothing to do but complain about Don Cherry and Sidney Crosby for weeks like everyone else.

Enjoy it while it lasts. Tennis season is just around the corner.

Despite Loss, Senators Putting Scare Into Top Seeded Rangers As Game 4 Looms

New York 1 Ottawa 0 (Rangers lead series 2-1)

There will be a lot of virtual ink spilled about the soul-sucking performance of Henrik Lundqvist and the inability of Ottawa's top scorers Jason Spezza and Milan Michalek to even get a puck near the GQ force-field (the two combined for 4 shots - 3 of them by Spezza), so I won't bother going on about it tonight.

You've all seen it and I know by the site stats that nobody in Ottawa likes to read blogs breaking down games the day after a gut churning loss.

So on to the positives. And there were a never ending supply of them all night long in Game Three.

To cut right to point of it, the Rangers are in for the battle of their playoff lives.

The supposed first seed is getting everything they can handle from the eighth place Senators, and in true playoff fashion, the Rangers escaped by the slimmest of margins on a fortuitous bounce that local favourite Brian Boyle put past Craig Anderson.

The Senators put 39 shots at Lundqvist, which was 16 more than the Rangers managed. That's not exactly within the "margin of error". That's a sign the Senators outplayed the Rangers and simply got shutdown by a great goalie. The law of averages say the Senators will get a few by him eventually and if Anderson keeps playing strong, this series should go to six or seven games.

Other good performances were clocked by Zack Smith, who finally showed up in this series and was probably the best Senator on the ice the first two periods. Kyle Turris doesn't look intimidated and nearly tied the game with seconds left in the 3rd. The role players are doing a good job cancelling out the role players on the Rangers with Zenon Konopka, Jesse Winchester and Chris Neil all having a strong series.

If there's a chance Daniel Alfredsson can go in Game Four, it might be all the emotional spark the Senators need to get one or two past Lundqvist.

The Senators got that boost from the Matt Carkner scrap in Game Two but now that the scores have been settled and everyone was ready to play square hockey, Ottawa couldn't find that extra gear when they needed it in the third. Right before Boyle scored the winning goal for the Rangers, Ottawa had them on the ropes for three or four shifts but the big moment never happened.

The Kanata crowd was waiting for a goal to unleash pure hell but ended up kicking empty plastic beer cups out of their way on the sad march from the stands.

As painful as that loss was, the Senators look like a team who can actually beat the Rangers if they get a bounce or two to go their way. Whatever team can end up racking up two wins in a row will win this series.

There's still plenty of time and ice for Ottawa to surprise a few more people this year.

Black Aces Senators 3 Stars

1. Craig Anderson
2. Zack Smith
3. Chris Phillips

Honourable Mentions: Sergei Gonchar, Erik Karlsson, Kyle Turris, Colin Greening and Bobby Butler.

Senators Embrace Playoff-Style Hockey And Get Huge Win For The Road-Split In NY

Ottawa 3 New York 2 (Series tied 1-1)

Just minutes after Chris Neil backhanded a loose puck past Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist for the overtime winner in Game 2, the much under-appreciated winger stood calmly for the traditional post-game HNIC interview accorded to all playoff heroes.

As the first question, Cassie Campbell described to Neil the scene in the hallway just moments after the winning goal where Senators coach Paul MacLean walked right up to the previously ejected Matt Carkner and shook his hand. Campbell asked Neil what it meant to the team that Carkner had been tossed for instigating a fight with Brian Boyle in retaliation for a Game 1 pummelling of Ottawa's best player, Erik Karlsson.

Neil, like Nick Foligno had also done in a 2nd intermission interview, praised Carkner's actions and said that the Ottawa Senators were a "family" and that it meant a lot to the guys in the room that Carkner addressed the problem right away.

It's telling to me that some were wondering about a possible Carkner suspension and moaning about his "brutality" while MacLean was going out of his way to shake Carkner's hand. The players and coaches know what that fight meant to the dressing room, and that's all that will matter in the end. The rest is just schoolyard chatter by so-called "experts" on the game.

You've all seen it by now. Carkner challenged Boyle right away for the Karlsson incident and didn't wait for the answer. Fists flew and Boyle took a couple hard ones before crumpling to the ice trying to protect whatever good looks he had. All Carkner did was deliver as many punches as Boyle did two nights before to Karlsson's head, only this time a lot harder.

It got Carkner tossed but it also gave the Senators a five minute disadvantage despite Ranger Brandon Dubinsky getting tossed for being the third-man-in (Dubinsky also savaged a Gatorade cooler on his way to the room, a clip that will be played for years during montages across all sports networks regardless of context).

Reaction was split along the usual lines. People who don't like the rougher side of the game were already bemoaning the fact that Coach MacLean had started Carkner and Zenon Konopka and when Carkner took the extra five minutes, those people were throwing their hands in the air. Others saw it as something that just had to be done, regardless of the consequences.

Turns out, the Rangers didn't even come close to scoring on the extended power-play and the Senators seemed like a different team after that.

In Game One, it was like the Senators had completely forgotten how intense you had to be in the playoffs to make a difference. If you had seen the Penguins-Flyers or Predators-Wings opening games, you saw four teams exploding on every shift, dying for the puck and battling each other for every opening of ice.

The Senators saw that from the Rangers but didn't have the spark they needed to respond properly. Rightly, MacLean saw the weakness and fixed the problem by inserting experience and toughness with Carkner and Konopka over Matt Gilroy and Kaspars Daugavins.

It didn't pay off right away, and at moments in Game Two it looked as if the Rangers would sneak away with another victory because Jason Spezza, Milan Michalek and Daniel Alfredsson couldn't get pucks to the net. Yet, after the gong-show opening, the Senators at least rediscovered that never-say-die mentality they had during their best stretches of the regular season. The chemistry worked. Konopka didn't do anything outlandish all night but win faceoffs and look like a de facto Boston Bruin out there.

Karlsson, suddenly feeling a little taller and more confident thanks to Carkner's payback, was the best Senator on the night, constantly rushing the puck and putting it on net every chance he had. His 10 shots (and those were just the ones that got through) were twice as many as second place Zack Smith's 5.

Jared Cowen rebounded from an awful Game One and was a physical force most of the night being second to Karlsson in credited hits with 4 (the MSG statisticians seem to be a little stingy in the hits department).

Craig Anderson again couldn't control any rebounds but he made some important stops after giving up a bad goal to Anton Stralman on the power-play halfway through the first.

Of course, the big negative to come out of the night was Daniel Alfredsson leaving the game after taking a cheap shot elbow to the head from Carl Hagelin in the second period, and as of this writing, nobody knows what kind of shape the captain is in.

It was that kind of night. The CBC talking heads kept using the words "circus" and they were pretty close. We saw elbows, slew foots, dives, rabbit punches, headlocks, phantom penalties, pummelings, blood, blocked shots, blocked shots with groins and an overtime goal by Neil.

Hell of a game.

To me, there's a direct correlation to Carkner deciding to stand up for his teammates and the Senators finally finding the balls to play playoff hockey the way it's supposed to be done. It's rarely pretty and victories sometimes come on strange bounces, but the Senators couldn't continue to go down the path of taking punishment from the Rangers and trying to turn the other cheek by rigidly sticking to a ho-hum game plan that was completely lacking in emotion and drive.

They needed a gutsy effort and they got it, even if they took the long way around.

First game back in Ottawa should be a doozy.

Black Aces Senators 3 Stars

1. Matt Carkner
2. Erik Karlsson
3. Chris Neil

Honourable Mentions: Jared Cowen, Nick Foligno, Zenon Konopka and Filip Kuba.

History Repeats Itself As Sens Look Flat In Game One ... Plus Opening Night Game Notes



New York 4 Ottawa 2

It wasn’t pretty, kids.

Not for Senators fans, hockey fans or even the brain damaged. It actually takes some effort to find a lousy hockey game in the first round but we witnessed a classic fugazi on Thursday as the Senators bombed on Broadway opening night.

For those of us who have had the pleasure of seeing every single Senators playoff game in their relatively brief history, the flat performance in the first game of a series is old hat. We’ve seen it more times than we’ve seen the Soup Nazi episode of Seinfeld. The "lousy Sens playoff game" went into syndication years ago.

That’s the good news/bad news.

Just because Ottawa stunk doesn’t mean they’ll stink the rest of the series. This is just how they do things. They like to dip their toe into the pool while their opponent usually cannonballs naked into the deep end with two beers in their fists and a snorkel on upside down.

Yet, for this Senators edition, after the character-filled regular season they had, this was a weird one.

Ottawa’s first power-play was a true dud without a single shot on goal. Doesn’t seem like such a big deal early in a scoreless game but it was a missed opportunity to throw a little doubt into the Rangers psyche. Even if you don’t score, you can put a scare into your opponent by moving the puck around and getting shots through. Didn’t happen and Rangers captain Ryan Callahan scored the first goal of the series shortly after.

It was good work by CBC cameras to quickly cut to Erik Condra on the Sens bench after Callahan’s goal. The blood pouring out of Condra’s face suggested that the refs might have missed a penalty call just moments before the puck went in (replays showed it wasn’t illegal) but coach Paul MacLean looked on silently while Condra bled and the Rangers celebrated.

If this was the regular season, we would have seen MacLean mutter one of those wry “for f**k’s sakes” moustache ripplers and maybe wave a hand at the ice. Instead, MacLean kept his cool and it made you wonder if this was some kind of tactic, as if to say to the refs “Hey, you’re going to hear waves of hell coming from the Rangers bench every time you blow the whistle. You won’t hear a peep from us. Maybe remember that down the line here.”

Not a bad idea, especially when MacLean already has a reputation with the refs. Let John Tortorella bury himself with the zebras while you wait darkly in the shadows.

Turns out, the Senators could have used some emotion rather than trying to keep their heads cool.

At one point early in the game, Brian Boyle used Erik Karlsson’s face as a speedbag ala Marchand on Sedin last year and nobody really did anything about it. Clearly, the Rangers had the emotional edge in the first period and carried it through the game until letting up after they got a four goal lead. Tortorella even called a time-out with his squad up a goal in the second and absolutely gave it to his players. Again the cameras cut to the Senators bench while this was going on and all we saw were a few guys drinking water and the coaching staff staring blankly at the ice. Strange to say the least.

To be fair, the big story wasn’t the Senators coming out flat. It was the Rangers coming out with speed, grit and emotion and all their star players had a good night. Callahan was an animal in the first half of the game and the Senators had no answer.

Chris Neil threw his body around as expected but nobody followed his lead, with the exception of Colin Greening, and later, after it was a bit too late, the dazzling stickhandler Nick Foligno.

Zack Smith was a ghost for most of the night and only woke up when a Ranger hacked him near the benches on a change. Smith ended up being credited with 3 hits, all coming in the 3rd period. He had 0 shots and 0 blocked shots. It makes you wonder – how does a grinder not show up in the first game of the playoffs?

Star players can get shutdown offensively because their opponents game plan is based around it. Happens all the time, even to good teams. But grinders are always free to play hard and make hits. Smith had 17 shifts and didn’t make a difference on a single one of them. He’s had episodes like this throughout the regular season and was even made a healthy scratch at one point by MacLean to wake him up.

Lest it be thought I’m blaming Smith for the loss, most of the Senators had a flat game, although Daniel Alfredsson had jump most of the night and Craig Anderson played well early until the team fell apart in front of him with giveaways (and once behind him with Foligno’s unforgivable reverse play that got botched as badly as any I’ve ever seen).

Still, there’s reason for faith. The Senators got two pucks behind Henrik Lundqvist late in the game and that will at least take some pressure off going into Game Two. If they had gotten shutout on Thursday, their minds would have been in a cranked vice if they somehow got stoned by Lundqvist again in the first period on Saturday.

Instead, the Senators can tell themselves that they got the worst game out of their system right away and from now on it’s going to be playoff hockey the way every other team plays it in the NHL. Emotion can be a hindrance or it can be a positive. Usually, it’s not lacking in the playoffs, it’s just how you use it.

For some reason, the Senators miraculously looked like they had none at all for two periods, defying all the odds of science, culture and civilization.

My guess is they’ll get a little of that New York spirit after another day spent in Manhattan, brooding over their Game 1 flop in the spotlight.

Black Aces Senators 3 Stars

1. Daniel Alfredsson
2. Jason Spezza
3. Chris Neil

NOTES

Started out Wednesday night watching the Flyers-Penguins game but was switching to Wings-Predators during breaks. Pretty soon I was glued to the much more exciting Western match-up. The Flyers game had a great start and wild finish, but it couldn't compare to the speed and flow of the Wings-Predators. Not even close. I might be crazy but I still think the Wings can win that series despite looking a lot older and slower than the Preds. But that's the thing - for everything Nashville threw at them, the Wings were still in a position to tie it up to the very end. It's brains versus brawn in that one. I'm still taking the brains.... Speaking of brains, Shea Weber brained Henrik Zetterberg with a force-feed into the glass that looked worse than it really was. Many thought it should be a suspension but the resulting fine seems appropriate enough. To me, it was over the edge but not enough to be suspended for. Weber was just introducing himself. Nothing wrong with a little "How do you do?" on occasion. If anything, Weber needs to play on the edge the whole series. He's got the size to defend himself. Might as well push the Wings around because if there's one weakness the Wings have, it's a lack of toughness. Exploit it....

..... Ryan Kesler truly embarrassed himself and his organization Wednesday night with at least two pathetic attempts to sell a penalty. The first was when he was tangled up with Kings goalie Jonathan Quick and shot back his head as if he had been butt-ended in the face. Not even close. The second, and even more embarrassing was his barrel-roll to the ice as he and Mike Richards battled for position. Kesler even threw his stick for good measure, like a sniper had put one between his ribs from the 3rd deck. Alain Vigneault shouldn't let his brats get away with that crap but Kesler isn't the only Canuck known for soccer-style dives and chronic whining. If the Canucks get swept in four games, it will still have taken too long. Seeing the Canucks lift the Stanley Cup in June should make any hockey fan outside of B.C. retch.... Okay, too far? I am a fan of the Sedins. And Kevin Bieksa. And Manny Malhotra. And Sami Salo. And Vancouver is a nice city. I lived there for a while back in the 90's but back then the face of the franchise was Trevor Linden whose biggest sin was drinking real milk instead of soy. Times have changed .....

…. So Tampa GM Steve Yzerman put the kibosh on Guy Boucher going back to the Montreal Canadiens organization to take over for sitting duck Randy Cunneyworth next season. It’s no surprise that Yzerman ended speculation right away on Boucher, who still has two years left on his contract to the Bolts. But it’s strange that some would assume Boucher would welcome going back to the Canadiens organization. In Tampa he has Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman and Martin St. Louis. In Montreal he’d have a goalie in Carey Price, but not much else. Tampa can turn around and win their division next year. If Montreal does, jaws will hit the floor....

.... I love how people have been disregarding Tomas Holmstrom of the Wings after he had a sub-par season and then he goes out and scores a big goal bulling his way to the net on the power-play in a maze of legs, arms and fists. Nobody since the 1970's has taken more horrific abuse in front of the cage than Holmstrom. Anybody who has had a laugh at Holmstrom's expense this season should put down their potato chips, stop tweeting, and go watch some highlights of the Wings Cup runs in 98, 02 and 08. The fact that he can walk, let alone skate, is a miracle of human endurance. Guy is a legend.

Senators Get Rangers In First Round ... Torts Ready For War

A week ago, it was all but certain Ottawa would face the Bruins in the first round. Hotel rooms were booked, Google maps checked for Cheers and tickets bought for Fenway on the off-day. It would have taken a bizarre series of circumstances for the Senators to drop to 8th in the East and play the Rangers, but that's exactly what happened. There was an earthquake, a loss to the Devils, a stalled scoreboard clock, a Washington win, a player on the bench touching the puck, a series of concussions and a Panthers win that resulted in some mathematical algorithm which ensured an unforeseen 1st round matchup.

Also, the Senators simply stopped playing once they clinched the post-season.

So now what?

There's a lot of Senators fans thrilled at the idea of taking on the Rangers but you won't hear a hint of that coming from the players or the Senators organization. If you go by the regular season, Ottawa seems to match-up better against New York than Boston, but nobody wants to provide bulletin-board material for a team that was on the verge of winning the President's Trophy. How can you say you'd rather play the 1st place team than the 2nd? When you overthink the game, anything is plausible.

Ottawa is still the decided underdog going into this series, but like I said on Twitter, if there's one coach the referee's hate more than Paul MacLean, it's John Tortorella. That's worth at least one road victory in the first two games.

It will be a faster skating, less physical series than it would have been against the Bruins, and we'll also be treated to Tortorella's wonderful wit. Get ready for quotes like "I don't give a s**t about Erik Karlsson. I'm just worried about my team." Or "Spezza is the dirties f**in' player in the league and if MacLean has anything to say about it, tell him for me that I'll meet him in the parking lot and we'll settle this the old-fashioned way".

As with all playoff series, the goalies will decide this thing in the end and the Rangers have the best one in the league in Henrik Lundqvist. I know Jonathan Quick is in vogue right now but I'm guessing most GM's would take Lundqvist over Quick in a heartbeat. All would take Lundqvist over Craig Anderson to win a playoff series as well, but if the Senators goalie plays well enough to keep it close, Ottawa's offense can beat the Rangers over seven games. Will it? Nobody knows.

With Tortorella seemingly a living, walking, talking exposed nerve these days, this series is ripe for some serious off-ice drama if things don't go the Rangers way in the early going. If New York starts strong, expect Torts to keep his mouth shut, even against his best instincts.

Should be worth the wait.

Sens Hope Bishop Deal Mirrors Giguere Swap... Dull Devs Loss... Jobu Approved Game Notes

With seven games in the books as an Ottawa Senator, and with a respectable 3-2-2 record, Ben Bishop has settled in comfortably as option 1B for at least the rest of this season, even as his arrival seemingly coincided with the Senators entering a Twilight Zone of flat performances.

Option 1A remains Craig Anderson who is very close to returning from a freak Julia Child/Dan Aykroyd inspired kitchen accident, but if more of the unexpected happens, Coach Paul MacLean knows he can throw Bishop into the nets and his boys will have a chance to win hockey games.

Yet there was some anxiety for a few fans when GM Bryan Murray moved a 2013 second-round draft pick for the unproven behemoth, but they had good company in a few NHL GM's who were also chasing Bishop but didn't want to pay the asking price.

Here's the CBC’s Elliotte Friedman on Ottawa trading for Bishop: “Other teams (Toronto, Tampa Bay) didn't want to give up a second-rounder. But when the time comes to decide between him and Robin Lehner, you've got to figure the Senators get back that pick, if not something better.”

It's strange how much of a no-brainer this seems now, only weeks after the deal. You'd think a second-rounder would be a very reasonable price to pay for an NHL goalie but obviously some felt differently. I think some fans feel the accumulation of draft picks is more important than actually winning hockey games but it's surprising to hear some NHL GM's were that cautious. If Bishop were to be drafted this season, he’d be a late first-rounder or a second at worst.

Of course, pro and amateur scouting has a lot to do with successful trades but when it comes down to pushing the big red button on a transaction, the GM has to have the nerve to make the decision, knowing it could flop and make him look foolish in the eyes of some critics.

Goalies in particular seem hazardous to the sanity of GM's. You feel for guys like Bobby Clarke and Rejean Houle.

Yet there's a fairly recent example of second-rounder/goalie swap that worked out well for the team acquiring the warm body.

The Anaheim Ducks traded a second-round pick to Calgary for Jean-Sebastien Giguere, another big goalie (for the pre-Rinne era at least) back at the 2000 Entry Draft. Giguere led the Ducks to the Stanley Cup Final in 2003 where they lost to the Devils (Giguere won the Conn Smythe Trophy despite losing the series), and then finally won the Cup in 2007 against the Senators. That second-rounder traded away by the Ducks (and then later moved to Washington) became Matt Pettinger, a serviceable player but not a true difference maker like Giguere was for many years.

If you don't take any risks, you end up watching other team's parades.

***

New Jersey 1 Ottawa 0

This was another frustrating game for the Senators, who look like they've hit the wall after a long season of giving us entertaining hockey.

That's about 3 clunkers in a row and on Tuesday night the Senators were even without Jason Spezza who missed the game for undisclosed reasons, although it's been acknowledged he's had a tough week away from the rink

Whatever insight you could gain by breaking down the last week of plodding, low-scoring games might be misleading. The Senators look tired and frustrated on their own home ice but these kinds of spells hit most teams at some point in the season.

They remain 6 points up on idle Buffalo who seem to be the only team who could realistically pull the Senators kicking and screaming from the top eight. Ottawa's not going to catch the Devils for 6th and a Florida first-round matchup anymore, but they only need to tread water at .500 to reach their goal.

No reason to scream for the lifeguard just yet.

Black Aces Senators 3 Stars

1. Ben Bishop (.971 SV%)
2. Chris Neil (9 hits, 4 shots)
3. Erik Karlsson (6 shots)

Honourable Mentions: Matt Gilroy

NOTES

Matt Gilroy – still tanned…. Daniel Alfredsson has been fairly cold for a while now, but I suspect the wise veteran has learned a few hard lessons over the years (thanks to Mark Bell) and is making sure he reaches the playoffs healthy so he can put it all on the line when it matters. He knows this could be his last chance at the post-season and I’m sure these final few games can’t go fast enough right now…... As I said on Twitter this weekend, the Senators have fallen flat way too many times against the Toronto Maple Leafs over the years to call it a coincidence. It’s more like an incurable neurosis that spans generations of players through a mysterious process that no one can seem to grasp. I propose a dressing stall in the Senators locker room be cleared to make room for the exact same altar of worship that Pedro Cerrano from Major League set up for Jobu. “Tis' very bad to steal Jobu’s rum. Tis' very bad.”



…. Another reason hockey is the best? One woman proposed marriage to another Saturday night on the ice in Kanata. And the Senators helped facilitate the moment, which was a classy move on their part. But what if Prime Minister Stephen Harper had been in attendance that night (as he sometimes is at Scotiabank Place)? Would he have sat on his hands and frowned (as his core far-right supporters would insist he do) or would he have applauded like the rest of the crowd who clearly enjoyed the moment? That would have been ten times more interesting than the game that night…. No surprise we hear the typical hand-wringing from pundits horrified that the Devils and Rangers started off their Monday night game with three “staged” fights off the opening faceoff. “O, the humanity! The barbarism!” Personally, as a fan of the game, I loved it. I wish more games would start that way. If Ottawa went out for the opening faceoff last Saturday night against the Leafs and immediately started a line-brawl, it would easily go down as one of the great Battle of Ontario games, no matter what happened the rest of the 59 minutes. Nothing wrong with a good yard-sale once in a while, especially between bitter rivals like the Devils and the Rangers. The players seem to enjoy it. That’s good enough for me…

....If rumours are true that Patrick Roy already has a deal in place to take over as Montreal coach this summer, the Habs have hit the jackpot. There will be a lot of doubters out there but Roy is a winner and he’ll find a way to win as an NHL bench boss as well. And as an ex-player who clashed with more than a few head coaches, he’ll understand what his players are going through and what it takes to survive in Montreal as an object of fanatical obsession. Now, what's Mark Messier doing lately…. Lots of hype about Alex Radulov and the Nashville Predators, but there does remain the very real possibility that Radulov doesn’t make much of an impact and the Preds lose to Detroit or someone else in the first round. The expectations have risen so quickly that a potential disappointment may not be far behind. We’ve seen this type of thing play out so many times in the first round. Ottawa fans know this reality all too well. Nothing against Radulov or the Preds at all, but it just seems too storybook right now....

.... Here's Mel Bridgman, the Ottawa Senators first GM, on the cover of the Devils 84-85 Media Guide (click for larger image). I'd love one of those old foam and mesh caps the kids are wearing.

..... Roy MacGregor, one of my favourite sportswriters,  has a little fun at Ottawa’s expense in Tuesday’s Globe by calling the capital city and Winnipeg “(t)he two lesser cities, of roughly equal size…” Oh Roy. Ottawa is the 4th largest census metropolitan area in Canada with a population of 1,236,324. Winnipeg is 8th with 730,018 people. But give Roy credit. He knows how to get an easy rise from us Bytowners, and that’s to call the city small and boring (in the same article he calls Ottawa fans “so librarian”). Hey, columnists have been doing it for a century. Roy’s just doing his small part. But here’s the catch - When you complain, like me, that someone is calling your town small, you’re basically confirming it by the act of complaining. I even trotted out the stats. How small-town and sad is that?.... Here's “Dobber” via Puck Daddy on the woes (and sudden emergence) of Columbus goalie Steve Mason, who recently switched to bigger pads, and what that could mean for a future crackdown on oversized goalie equipment: “Probably the worst goalie in the league from October through February, Mason has suddenly become one of the best. The reason? Bigger pads? If that truly is the case, then the NHL would have all the proof it needs to increase scoring. If bigger pads can turn a guy who was probably not fit to start in the ECHL into an NHL goalie with a 94% save percentage, then what would shrinking said pads do for league-wide offense?”

This is what NHL shooters used to face:

This is what they face now:

Sweet Lord.

Tweet

Sens Beat Rangers At Own Game .... Klinkhammer! .... Farley! ... Game Notes

Ottawa 4  New York 1

Let's not yank each other by calling this a huge statement game for the Ottawa Senators.

The Senators pumped 3 goals past funny guy Martin Biron, which was a little easier than putting 3 past probable Vezina winner Henrik Lundqvist, who watched this fairly slow tilt from the bench.

But.... the Senators will take the two points and probably get a good dose of confidence from it. Just getting to the net is a bit of a feat when going against the Rangers, and Ottawa merely cashed in when the rare opportunity for a good scoring chance arose.

So let's take the goalies out of the equation. Skater to skater, the Senators were the better team on Thursday night in what turned out to be more of a playoff-style game than you might have expected with both teams not exactly desperate for a win to keep them alive.

For some reason, the rest of the league can't beat the Rangers but Ottawa matches up with them quite well, winning the season series 3-1. It's unlikely these two teams would meet in the first round unless Ottawa drops to 8th or the Rangers drop to 2nd, but you'd have to think the Senators would prefer this matchup than the one that's staring them in the face right now - the Big Bad Bruins and Tim Thomas.

Jared Cowen had one of his better games this season and Zack Smith looks like he's back to being that nasty, Undertaker-looking SOB after getting iced a few games ago for sleepwalking on the job. Even Nick Foligno scored a goal, the winner, which is cause to break out the good cigars for a change.

Black Aces Senators 3 Stars

1. Jared Cowen
2. Zack Smith
3. Ben Bishop

Honourable Mentions: Kyle Turris, Filip Kuba, Rob Klinkhammer, Daniel Alfredsson, Sergei Gonchar and Nick Foligno.

Black Aces 3 Star Season Scorecard

(3 points for 1st star, 1 point for 3rd etc.)

1. Karlsson – 50
2. Anderson – 49
3. Spezza – 45
4. Alfredsson – 40
5. Michalek – 35
6. Neil – 23
7. Cowen – 19
8. Greening – 17
9. Foligno – 16
10. Gonchar – 14
11. Smith – 12
12. Turris – 9
13. Lehner - 9
14. Kuba – 6
15. Phillips – 4
16. Da Costa – 4
17. Condra – 3
18. Butler – 2
19. Daugavins - 2
20. Winchester – 1
21. Carkner – 1
22. Bishop - 1

NOTES

Is 40 goals the new 50? Some would say scoring 35 is the same as scoring 50 in the 80’s and early 90’s. If so, Milan Michalek is well on his way to a “50 goal season” with his current 32. Wait, I’ve confused myself…. With the new white mask and the all-white pads, Ben Bishop is going to look like a Stormtrooper the next time the team wears the road whites. The Sens already had Darth Gerber. And I guess Kyle Turris has the same look and build as Luke Skywalker. Also like Skywalker, Turris would stand in the Phoenix desert staring into the horizon, knowing innately that his destiny lay somewhere else….. One more for the road. Jared Cowen is definitely Chewbacca. I think he emits the same sound when he makes a bad play on the ice.... Henrik Lundqvist had perfectly coiffed hair sitting on the bench tonight. And I mean perfect. If I had hair like that, I’d be much more successful in life. People would respect me. They'd bring me towels and call me King Jerome. I guess I’ll just have to live with my rat’s nest….. Rob Klinkhammer has only played 3 games for Ottawa but the guy looks like he belongs. Seems like a more cerebral player than Jimmy O’Brien, more along the lines of Erik Condra. It’s early, but it looks like another smart pickup by Bryan Murray. The Senators could go into this summer’s draft and not pick a single forward if they were so inclined. In fact, if they use their first three picks on defensemen, would anyone be surprised? Now watch Murray draft six Swedish centres….

.... Matt Gilroy just played two consecutive games against the first two teams he started his career with. Talk about getting closure right away…. One good thing about trading Brian Lee: Sens fans will no longer be subjected to the “could have drafted Marc Staal” every time Ottawa plays the Rangers. Although pundits enjoyed pointing out that Ottawa could have drafted Chris Pronger in '93, even after Alexandre Daigle left town in a trade for Pat Falloon and Vaclav Prospal. Anyways, as they say, “show me a scout who hasn’t made a mistake and I’ll show you a blogger”….. Good thing the Globe and Mail, a national newspaper, occasionally obliges us by covering the Toronto Maple Leafs in such painstaking detail, because otherwise we would suffer from a lack of information and opinion about Canada’s true team. Take, for instance, the Wednesday edition of the Globe. Front of the sports section you come across the half-page photo of Leaf goalie Jonas Gustavsson. Underneath is an article by Roy MacGregor about the Leafs loss to the Boston Bruins on Tuesday night with an opening paragraph that reads “When it comes to hockey, The Centre of the Universe is a bit of an understatement.” Okay, Roy’s being cheeky. Pretty good column. Now, let’s see what else is happening in the hockey world. Let’s skip past the two soccer articles because soccer is just as boring in print as it is on television. Top of the next page, David Shoalts weighs in on Mikhail Grabovski signing a 5-year deal with the Leafs. There must be a non-Leaf story somewhere in here, right? Let’s see. The next headline is “Toronto takes its lumps” and we get another synopsis of the Leafs loss to Boston, this time by James Mirtle. Another big photo of Gustavsson in his pretty Toronto blues. Directly below that is the continuation of MacGregor’s Leafs story with a picture of new coach Randy Carlyle. Oh wait. What’s this? Nestled snugly into the bottom corner of the page is a 2-inch column that says “Senators 7, Lightning 3”. Apparently Ottawa also played a hockey game on Tuesday night. Obviously, not very important. Turn the page and we get another vital Sidney Crosby article explaining to us that he may or may not be back this season. That’s it folks. Oh, wait, one more thing. The NHL standings and the box scores from the night before. There were 12 games on the Tuesday night but there’s only one of the box scores. Let’s see which one it is. Yep. It’s the box score from the Toronto game….. Thursday’s edition of the Globe had only one small Leafs story in addition to good coverage of the Habs and Canucks. Brian Burke must be in the Globe offices trying to get an editor fired….

Time for some random vintage New York Rangers programmes found on the net:

...... "There's no better pass in hockey than a rebound." Not a bad line from Denis Potvin tonight immediately after Turris put one past Martin Biron from a Daniel Alfredsson rebound.... Speaking of Potvin, I know it's sort of vogue for people on Twitter to pick apart everything he says in an attempt to ridicule him. I realize it's probably all in good fun and it makes you look ever so clever. But before you do it, think of it like this: Denis Potvin has 4 Stanley Cup rings. Have you even had 4 good tweets? The answer is probably no..... The NHL made the right decision not to suspend or fine Niklas Kronwall of the Red Wings for his perfectly executed hit on the Flyers Jakub Voracek on Tuesday night. Why are we even talking about it in those terms anyways? It’s the toe-in-the-crease rule all over again but this time applied to hockey hits. Voracek was skating up the boards with his head down like it was a game of shinny. No surprise he ended up on his back…. A pretty good read over at The Score by Daniel Wagner about the fact that referees are “on pace to call 200 fewer hooking penalties and 100 fewer holding penalties this season”. Not surprisingly, scoring is down and many are wondering if the “dead-puck era” is back for revenge. Brooks Orpik of the Penguins thinks it has something to do with the league wanting to decrease concussions by allowing some obstruction back into the game. Jaromir Jagr says there are “a lot more hooks. I feel it myself; I’m losing the puck…They let it go.” The article has a whole table of stats for the stat nerds but you can probably see the difference just by watching the games with your own eyes. I’m sure I can speak for all of us who had to sit through most of the 1990’s watching clutch and grab defensive hockey – we don’t want to go back there. However they decide to do it, whether it’s putting the red line back in, further decreasing goalie equipment, banning blocked shots or any other idea, the NHL has to open the game up for its star players and keep it that way permanently through vigilance. Scoring, skating and hitting need to be the priorities here. That’s hockey at its best. If it means another crackdown on obstruction, I’m all for it. Just don’t let the league slide back into that crap we all had to endure when goalies and coaches took over the league the minute Mark Messier handed the Stanley Cup back after the 94-95 lockout.....

Enjoy the weekend pals. Don't do anything I wouldn't do. Here's a little Chris Farley to get things started on the right/left foot.




Tweet