Will history repeat itself for the Ottawa Senators?

A scramble in front of Ryan Miller’s net last night in the second period with the Senators down a goal against the Buffalo Sabres resulted in a perfect opportunity for the Sens Captain Daniel Alfredsson, who shot the puck over the net and into the stands, to get his team back into the hockey game. The grimace, the heartache sprawled on Alfredsson’s face afterward epitomized the way things have been going for the Senators the past 7 seasons.

Since 98-99 the Senators have been the most dominate Eastern Conference club during the regular season twice capturing first place in the Conference and four times won the division. But seldom have the Senators translated that success into the Post Season where they’ve only managed to get past the first round twice and only once reached the Conference Finals. The problem for many years was Ottawa’s post season encounters with the Toronto Maple Leafs, who destined to face them in the opening series, were able to intimidate a smaller Senators core who relied solely on skill and speed. The old NHL rules in the playoffs were suited towards a gritty club like the Leafs and it’s not surprising that they were able to squeak out numerous Game seven series against there Provincial Rival.

This year, well things looked different. With the new rule changes that cut down on all obstruction and put more brutes in the penalty box, the highly effective Sens were putting up power play goals like it was going out of style. The acquisition of a playoff tested, not to mention Hall of Famer Dominik Hasek put the Senators in the minds of fans and critics at the top of the Cup Contenders list. Now in the heart of the playoffs with a first round win behind them, but no Dominator, the Ottawa Senators are on the brink of squandering another terrific season yet again, this time to a young inexperienced Buffalo Sabres club.

The look of Daniel Alfredsson had told me everything: eyes rolled to the ceiling, and a defeated shrug in his stride, the captain seemed moribund after his team’s bad luck, outshooting the Sabres by a ghastly 44-17 margin only to lose by a goal.

This club is not getting out of this round, down 2 games to 0, unless Ottawa’s feisty captain puts it upon himself to step up to the challenge. Far too many times has he hidden behind the faults of his teammates, namely goaltenders like Patrick Lalime, and this year's Ray Emery who were unable to do their part. The Senators even with shaky Emery, when Alfredsson is in control, can dominate and play effective enough to beat anybody in the league on any given night. The deciding factor in whether or not the Sens are going to right their previous wrongs in the post season lies with their Captain. Ultimately - he has to step up to the challenge.

If Alfredsson wants to bring a cup to Ottawa after far too many disappointing seasons he must look nowhere but inside himself for the inspiration and determination that will get his team past the second round and on to the Conference Finals.

A few things I think I think part 2

Evaluation of the First Round of the Playoffs:

1) How badly did the Montreal Canadiens need Saku Koivu in games 3-6? If it wasn’t for Koivu’s untimely injury the Canadiens would have swept the Canes’. It’s unfortunate how some big momentum changes rely on a key injury. It’s the nature of the NHL I guess. I watched Koivu on the t.v. program The Score last night and he was in good humour and seemed positive about a full recovery on his eye. That’s good news especially after all the adversity he’s faced since coming into the NHL.

2) The Carolina Hurricanes my early favorite to win the Cup has little to no chance against the New Jersey Devils. Why? Because their d-zone coverage was terrible against the Canadiens. Sure the Cane’s can score like crazy and have the advantage over The Sens and Sabres with their playoff experience in Stillman, Weight, Recchi, and Brind Amour but what about their inexperience on the blueline. Mike Commadore would not be a top four defensemen on many other teams in the NHL, but he’s in that position with the Canes’. It’s Carolina’s sloppy play in their own zone that will be their undoing in the second round.

3) Put every other battle aside in this series of Ottawa versus Buffalo. It will be the one on one between the pipes that’ll decide the outcome: Ray Emery vs. Ryan Miller. The big x-factor in the series might be the recovery of the Dominik "The Dominator" Hasek, if Ray Emery looks to be losing late in the series. I’m warning Lindy Ruff and the Sabres now so they won’t be surprised when Hasek has a miraculously early recovery and suits up in this series. Because of the trendy disclosure of injuries around the league, masking and often deceiving the severity of the injury of a player, an early recovery in crucial time is becoming a trademark of big league sports.

4) Does Tim Connolly ever score an ugly goal? He’s becoming the Vince Carter of the NHL with his flashy moves and ridiculously soft hands around the net. Last night’s goal against Ottawa was superb!

5) Great first round for the Sharks against the Predators! Everybody on the team stepped up their play especially Patrick Marleau and Tesa Voskala. But the question most people are going to ask before tomorrow night’s second round game against Edmonton is when will Joe Thornton show up for the playoffs? We are all aware of Thornton's long history of playoff woes, but with the first round jinx finally past him will he have shrugged off the jitters to return to his regular season MVP form? The Sharks will need him to if they want to stay a Stanley Cup Contender. Ultimately the play of Thornton and Michael Peca, yes I said it Michael Peca will be the deciding factor for each team in this series.

6) Was the Oilers’ dethroning of the mighty Red Wings a fluke? Yes and no. The Oilers matched up very well with the Red Wings. Like the Sabres, the Oilers have four solid lines that skate and shoot really well. I mean come on Fernando Pisani hammering the nail in the coffin. Not many teams would have the talent in a 3rd line winger to pull off an upset against the best team during the regular season. If you look at the Wings though, they are purely a finesse team. They rely on their skills and passing abilities to kill you on the power play. The Oilers were careful not to take stupid penalties and Dwayne Roloson stepped it up and made key saves. If anyone thought this was an unlikely upset think about the Ducks three years ago or even the Canucks’ two game lead in a first round series four years ago when they won the first two in Detroit (Cloutier’s inexperience killed us the rest of the way). The Wings are always prone to being upset because of their lack of intensity. They don’t have enough speed and grit to stay close to a hard working team. The Edmonton Oilers outworked the Red Wings for every loose puck around the net and in the corners and in doing so easily came out on top. On the upside I like how Yzerman was optimistic about the future of the team after what was probably his last game in the NHL. He thought the upset would help the learning curve of Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg, the team’s future stars. Comments like that show the unselfishness of the team oriented Hall of Famer Stevie Y.

7) Speaking of team Oriented Hall of Famers, Joe Sakic’s Avalanche looked solid against the not-so-confident Dallas Stars. Sakic proved yet again he still has plenty left in the tank. I was most impressed with Rob Blake, John Michael-Liles, and the rest of the d-core. They played phenomenal and really stepped it up for a blueline that was suspect during the regular season. Aaah, and of course Jose Theodore proved the critics, myself included, wrong. He’s truly a playoff performer. Hmm, I wonder now who will Marty Turco be auditioning for this summer? One team's loss means another team's gain. Turco has now sunk to ranks of Dan Cloutier: a solid regular season performer who *%&$'s the bed in the playoffs. I think Dave Nonis should phone up Doug Armstrong and make an offer. It’s worth a shot, don’t you think?

8) Game seven of the Ducks versus Flames series was as many sports writers claimed, arguably the worst game seven in NHL history. I would have to agree. You can’t get much worse than that. The Flames looked lifeless. It’s amazing how sluggish they looked in the most important game of their season. I mean the Flames are meaning of heart and soul in hockey. Was it that they were overly excited about the game, or maybe just maybe some of them looked in the mirror that morning and realized aside from Iginla and Kiprusoff the rest of them are really a bunch of AHL caliber plugs. Whatever the case, the lack of depth on the Flames roster revealed itself, as it was evident as early as midway through the second that the Flames were not going to win or even score a single goal in the 3-0 snooze fest at the Saddledome Wednesday evening.


First Round Record: 5-3

Second Round Predictions:

Did anyone else notice that in the Western Conference all the lower seeds advanced 5-8, while in the Eastern Conference all the higher seeds advanced 1-4?

Eastern Conference:

(1) Ottawa Senators versus (4) Buffalo Sabres

Although I cheated and watched game one in this series before making my picks I still think Ottawa will win in Seven.

(2) Carolina Hurricanes versus (3) New Jersey Devils

The Hurricanes will not be able to keep up with the hard working experienced Devils with tested playoff performers aplenty: Elias, Langenbrunner, Madden, Rafalski, Gomez and hmm a pretty clutch performer in goal: Martin Brodeur. Devils in Six.

Western Conference:

(5) San Jose Sharks versus (8) Edmonton Oilers

The Oilers may have knocked off the best team in the league but that’s no reason why the Sharks should be scared about a team they match up really well against. The Sharks will rely on their first two lines and their physical D who love to play the rough and tough game especially brutes Scott Hannan and Brad Stuart who’ll pound the Oiler offense like crushed pop cans. Sharks in Six.

(6) Anaheim Mighty Ducks versus (7) Colorado Avalanche

The Ducks looked so solid in grinding out the Flames. The way Ilya Bryzgalov is playing and the revival of Teemu Selanne not to mention having the best playoff defensemen in my opinion in Scott Neidermeyer, they should out work and out think the offensive minded Avs every step of the way. Ducks in Five.

Crawford Ousted

Sports Writing the Good: Damien Cox's article titled " Crawford, Leafs Bad Fit " in the Toronto Star April 26,

" Yes, Crawford has a 1996 Stanley Cup ring courtesy of the Colorado Avalanche, something Maurice - nor Quinn, for that matter - has in their jewellery box.
But without Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg and Patrick Roy, Crawford won nothing, and he failed to do at the Olympics what Quinn did manage to achieve.

As the Vancouver coach since 1999, Crawford's Canuck teams won one - count 'em, one - playoff series. On two occasions, Crawford's teams were poised to move on in the playoffs, but lost Game7 on home ice.

With all kinds of talent this year - more, in fact, than the Leafs - Crawford couldn't cajole enough effort out of his top players to qualify for post-season play.

No matter how badly Todd Bertuzzi and Markus Naslund played, Crawford continued to play them as a No.1 line even though the unit of the Sedin twins and Anson Carter was better all season long.

And yes, let's talk about Bertuzzi.

You could make a case that Crawford, as much as Bertuzzi, was responsible for that horrible incident on March 11, 2004. NHL lawmakers were dying to fine Crawford individually in the wake of the Steve Moore attack, but instead, chose to fine the Canucks as a team.
With the game out of control that night, it was Crawford's responsibility to be clear-headed and concerned for the overall well being of the team, not frothing at the mouth and part of the posse out to get Moore.

The Canucks, as a franchise, have paid dearly for what happened that night in lost revenue and lost public esteem, and Crawford has to share the responsibility for that.

Maybe he could rehabilitate himself with the Leafs, but quite frankly, the slicked-back look and overall Crawford act have worn thin over the years. Once a friendly and affable sort, he has become increasingly aloof and arrogant over the years. "

Sports Commentating the Bad: Kelly Hrudey on CBC, Wednesday April 26,

"I totally disagree with this move," Hrudey said. "I think Marc Crawford is a heck of a coach.
"He is going to go somewhere and, in fact, I think it's in [Toronto]. I'd have laid the blame more so at the player's feet in this case."

Hrudey is right, Crawford is a heck of a coach. But he's had little progress with the Canucks the past two seasons. How does Hrudey validate his opinion ? By blaming the players. Yes the oh-so-typical sports journalist sympathy pull, " Don't fire the coach, make the players accountable ". How, in a business like the NHL do you make the players accountable without trading them? You can't, that's the job of the coach, and well based on what happened it looks as though Crawford wasn't doing a good enough job of that. So the next question is who do we make accountable through a trade, and what can we get for them? Well let's take a look:

- Todd Bertuzzi, the most likely big time deal the Canucks will make in the offseason. Getting rid of Bert's contract is the only possible way the Canucks will have a chance at re-signing Ed Jovanovski. And even then, signing Jovo seems slim, my guess is he'll find a more lucrative contract through the free-agent market. And oh boy the Leafs would dearly part with McCabe for a defensemen of Jovanovski's caliber. Here's the catch with Bert though, who wants him? He's a disgruntled forward who has attitude problems, an inflated ego, a bit of a recluse in the dressing room, and clearly a player not playing anywhere near his potential. I could see Bobby Clarke licking his chops but not many other GM's around the league.

- Brenden Morrison, again underachieved this year, and looks like he could use a change of scenery. The problem - the Canucks, lacking depth on forward, would not get enough in return to make a deal involving Morrison worth while.

- Dan Cloutier, another tough sell because his stock is dropping with recent injury woes, not to mention a resume that includes only one playoff series win in four tries.

Anyone else? Not unless Nonis wants to trade his most valuable duo in Henrik and Daniel Sedin can the Canucks potentially (and I only mean POTENTIALLY and of course immediately) gain with an offseason trade. But really do you want to trade away the future of the club for a current all-star?

The best moves the Canucks can make are in the department of 3rd and 4th liners when Jovo opts not to re-sign with the club. The Canucks have suffered from only being able to roll with 2 lines, and if they want to have success next year the lack of talent up front has to be addressed. With the mid-season acquisitions of Noronen, and Carney (i think we'd all like to forget about Weinrich) Nonis has shown that he can make good deals, or at least logical ones. Acknowledging a teams' needs is actually a lot harder for GM's to do now with the hard cap than you think. And really, Nonis thusfar, done a good job.

Do I agree with his decision to fire Crawford? Of course I do. I think it was time for a change. Marc has done well for himself, and certainly turned around the franchise, it's just that he's lost a lot of respect from people around the league after the Bertuzzi incident, and perhaps even in the dressing room in the wake of the late season playoff push that was terribly unsuccesful.

Let's cross our fingers that Nonis chooses a good heir to the throne. Apparently he's going to take his time in making the decision and he's already compiled a short list of favorite candidates. Hmmm, I'm hoping Darryl Sutter's on that list, don't you?