Scanlan: Senators regroup after tough home loss
Here’s the good news if you’re a booster of the Ottawa Senators, the last Canadian team standing. Game 6 against the New York Rangers on Monday night was like the playoff hockey equivalent of a Premiere Showcase gone wrong, horribly wrong, but there is a chance for redemption.
Here’s the good news if you’re a booster of the Ottawa Senators, the last Canadian team standing.
Game 6 against the New York Rangers on Monday night was like the playoff hockey equivalent of a Premiere Showcase gone wrong, horribly wrong, but there is a chance for redemption.
For the Senators there is another mission, should they choose to accept it. Another opportunity to advance. As several players happily pointed out during an off-day Tuesday — who would have thought that a lowly eighth-place team like the Senators would get not one, but two, shots at upsetting a top place club like the Rangers?
But here they are.
Now that the one bullet is spent – and the Senators at times acted like spoiled school children PO’d at the notion they would not be closing out this playoff on home ice — there is that one bullet remaining in the chamber.
One last chance to avoid looking back on the twisted events of Monday at Scotiabank Place and thinking – THIS WAS WHERE WE BLEW IT!
If they can, the Senators will erase the bad taste in the mouth and take their act back on the road, where they have truthfully been more comfortable for weeks now, not just during this Eastern Conference quarterfinal.
For whatever reason, Madison Square Garden is especially welcoming, with the Senators having already won twice there this series (Games 2 and 5) and two other times during the regular season.
If the Senators are to focus on anything other than power play execution over the next 24 hours, it might be the C-word. Composure. One C-word could lead to another. Composure begets closure.
There was precious little of the commodity in Game 6, where Ottawa’s top players weren’t their top players, and unhealthy frustration spilled out all over the place.
Captain Daniel Alfredsson was the most conspicuous Senator to lose it, but as winger Colin Greening – the player with the startled reaction at the bench – noted, only Alfredsson had a camera on him all night.
The camera may not have caught defenceman Erik Karlsson flinging his stick in anger at the end boards as the buzzer sounded to end the game.
As head coach Paul MacLean likes to say, “frustration is a useless emotion.” Goofy penalty calls, non-calls, make-up calls, an ineffective power play, all served to create a Senators group eligible one of Jack Nicholson’s Anger Management sessions.
Sometimes the hockey gods have a sense of humour.
So it was that the day after Alfredsson threw a first-rate fit on the Senators bench, a very contrite captain was declared one of three finalists for the NHL’s Masterton Trophy for his “perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey.”
Incongruous? To use one of Alfredsson’s favorite expressions, “not really.”
Perseverance and dedication have been know to show a side dish of temper on occasion. As for the sportsmanship angle, Alfredsson was full measure for it on Tuesday, making no excuses for himself and apologizing for actions that included beating the bejeesus out of a hockey stick and water bottle in a third period incident at the Senators player bench.
“It was bad,” Alfredsson said. “I’m definitely not proud of it and I think it’s detrimental for the whole team.”
I asked him if he thought the recent concussion, Alfredsson’s second this season, might have triggered the kind of emotional swings that concussion victims often suffer; sudden anger and personality changes that spouses and girlfriends of the athlete especially notice. But Alfredsson didn’t think so.
“I haven’t been waking up in the morning feeling irritable,” Alfredsson said. “Just frustrated (at not being able to play in Games 3, 4 and 5 of the series).
In the moments before his meltdown, Alfredsson had received a bone-jarring hit along the boards, from the Rangers’ John Mitchell, “a hit to the head kind of,” he called it. The captain said he was frustrated, angry at himself that his radar had failed him, allowing him to get hit like that, but there was also an Ottawa power play that didn’t employ Alfredsson and Spezza, adding to the frustration.
“I don’t send a good message to the rest of the team by doing that,” Alfredsson said, of an episode that was well featured on the highlight shows. “You won’t see that again.”
MacLean was especially impressed at how Alfredsson’s stick held up.
“The stick was well made,” the coach said. “Back in the day, splinters would’ve been all over the place.”
From blowing a 1-0 lead to reacting badly to bad calls and personal frustrations, a young Senators team had no end of learning moments to take from Game 6.
MacLean refused to let his team off the hook, telling them, and us, how disappointed he was in a performance that lacked focus and discipline, and a day later he wasn’t about to change his tack and start blaming referees.
“We can’t take seven minors and expect to win,” MacLean said. “It’s not always the referees’ fault.”
If the Senators were rattled by the events of Game 6, they have an extra day to recover from it, and then it’s right into the MSG fire, where the Senators have played some of their best hockey in this series.
Hey look – a bunch of Senators players kicking a soccer ball around, say, they’re pretty good at kicking in Ottawa! Also a perfect sport for a diver like Chris Neil to be playing!
Hey, enjoy the ladies golf season – it starts in Kanata on Friday. Leave hockey to the men!
Hey Carton123 – Spoken like a true Maple Leaf Fan.
The Sens are in pursuit of there 13th Stanley – Toronto has won 13.
You may say OK but the Sens won theirs a long time ago – Like the Leafs winning in 1967 was not a long time ago?
Question – How many players did the Leaf coach dress for their last game of the season?
Answer – Three, all the rest were able to dress themselves!!!
Good one Senators G
Sounds like a loser to me. I guess it gets boring after a while when your team is 6th time outed and not even in playoff contention. Makes for a loooong off season
Who cares about the Leafs?
We haven’t won a playoff round since we changed GMs.
The rot starts at the top here in Ottawa, and I won’t change my mind until a Murray-built team wins a minimum of two games in a Stanley Cup finals here in Ottawa, as that is the standard that has been set by previous management.
Who do you think put this team in the mess it was — MUCKLER.
He could not draft, what prospects he had he traded away.. How about Brooks Laich for Peter Bondra… how did that work out. Don’t you think Laich would look good in a Sens jersey right about now?
He let Chara walk… traded Hossa for Heatley and got absolutely nothing for Havlat.
He left basically no prospects other than Regin, Foligno, Condra & Greening.. oh and Brian Lee. For the number of years he was GM in Ottawa don’t you think there would have been more than that.
The team prior to Murray becoming GM was built by management PRIOR TO MUCKLER. Muckler did bring in Sapriken (sp), Bondra, Rob Ray, Gerber, Preissing, Corvo oh and Hasak, Comrie… oh and traded for Heatley who ended up screwing the team.
All the key players on the team that went to the Cup final were in Ottawa or drafted by Ottawa long before Muckler arrived. He was the benefactor of the good drafting by prior management.
So get off this Murray crap… he inherited a team destined to fail. At the Cap, key players needed signing to contracts like Alfie, Fisher, Spezza, douchebag Heatley, Kelly and more. Some players had to be let go and Murray wanted to fill their spots with young players from the AHL. Problem is — there were NONE. Murray ran into problems with his free agent signings… that’s where he has a weak point.
Murray is not perfect… not too many GM’s are… especially that one further down the 401…. but he has certainly turned this team around.. knowing they had to re-build rather than just stagnate… and he has done a very good job at that… The wins will come maybe not this year.. but in the future…
Sen’s have provided Ottawa fan’s with some of the most entertaining NHL hockey any fan’s can wish for. Considering this is the first year of their rebuild they continue to surprise. In two years they will be a team to be reckoned with.
Carton, I don’t know what team you cheer for however based on your vitriol I suspect it’s a team that’s been underachieving for some time. It’s understandable, losing makes some people bitter and envious of others who are more successful. Try putting blame where it belongs, on the management/ownership of your team not on the players of another team.
COMPLETELY agree! This was THEIR rebuilding year. Some teams (you know.. like Toronto) are trying for their 6th year and still suck at it.
GO SENS GO!
Deep playoff runs are entertaining.
Choking away a chance to advance to the second round is not.
And…BITD…some of us have had the maginifying glass on Murray since he took over as GM, but without the media following suit and actually doing their jobs by criticizing and holding a microscope to the man we are stuck and mired in mediocrity, with the goalposts moving every year (“We’re tinkering”, “We’re retooling”, “We need a new coach (again)”, “There were injuries”).
Would be nice for Murray to deliver an actual championship for once in his life instead of siphoning dollars from the organizaiton year after year, but I’m not holding my breath…
@RecalSentrant – I’m not sure what more you want from a GM – The Sens were in the top 6 teams in the league for 6-7 years; We made it to 1 Final and 1 semi-final during that span (and Murray was the main reason for the Ducks getting to the final in 2007 having stocked their farm team up with A+ caliber prospects); We currently have one of the lowest payrolls in the league and are one of the last 11 teams standing; Our draft picks over the last few years (Silfverberg, Puemple, Zabinejad, Stone, Blood, etc…) are turning out to be the envy of the league; and we made the playoffs in year 1 of our re-build, 2-3 years earlier than everyone expected. The future is not just bright in Ottawa, it’s blinding.
Yup, that’s certainly mediocre. (where’s that pesky sarcasm font?)
Hello, first of all, how great it is to read your comments, Canada truly is the founding nation of hockey. This article was very enjoyable and the comments even more so. I wouldn´t say I´m a Sens fan but I´m a fan of hockey and since there are a lot of Swedes playing in both Rangers and Senators I´m gonna be watching the seventh game for sure tomorrow. Too bad it airs 1 a.m though, there will be more coffee than blood in my circulation system (;
Anyways, let´s hope for a great game and lots of emotions.
@RecalSentrant – I believe the problem is that you don’t appreciate how hard it is to win a championship in this sport. Of all the major sports, Hockey is the toughest sport to win a championship and I can say with certainty that this GM is working hard to make a championship team. As much as it may frustrate you, the fact is that they are doing their best and frankly speaking there is nothing you or I can do to speed up their progress, unless somehow you or I join the team. The only thing you can do is to cheer and support this team, because Ottawa is very lucky to have a major team in their city to begin with. I’ve been supporting this team since 1993, during times when this team was absolutely miserable to watch, and through this time this team was amongst the elite; I can say with certainty that this is the ‘healthiest’ Sens team I’ve seen in all the year following them, and why I know this is because they are taking a team that was projected to win the whole thing this year, to the brink of elimination. My suggestion to you is not to get caught up with all this “when is this GM going to bring home a championship” idea , it will happen when it happens. This team is going to be excellent in less than 2 years and will build a winning culture for many year to come.
GO SENS GO!
RecalSentrant/Visitor/Hockeynutz,
Same guy going to different sites and spreading poison about Ottawa’s rebuild. At the same time you’ve marvelled at the great rebuild going on in Toronto.
And please don’t hurt yourself jumping on the bandwagon later on.
Oh, I get it. This is supposed to be the “look how much fun the Sens are having even before a Game 7″ picture. Nice try. You had your chance in Game 6, boys. And after the Rangers put a 3 spot on you in the 2nd, they used that talentless hack, Neil, as a rag doll with Del Zotto applying the coup de grace. Nice goal at the end, by the way; a really skillfully executed play. That’s about the only way your guys can score on the King anyway!
Good luck Thursday at the World’s Most Famous Arena…you’ll need it.
@LetsGoRangers – You got it all wrong, I believe Boyle and Purst were Neils rag dolls. The two of them looked like Bambi after Neil was done with them.
But thanks for the well wishes in the World’s Most Famous (and deteriorating excuse for an) Arena – isn’t that the same place the Sens have won 4 of the last 5 games? I think it’s the Rangers that could use the luck a little more than the Sens.
PS – Lundquist actually put the puck into his net on the Sens 2nd goal, if you knew something about hockey and basic physics, you’d see that.