The thing about being the Ottawa Senators is that it doesn’t take much to win. For other teams—the Kansas City Chiefs, the Golden State Warriors, whoever has the pleasure of playing the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team—this means something different. For those juggernauts, winning itself is easy. For the Sens? Not the case. When we say it doesn’t take much for the Ottawa Senators to win, what we mean is that even when they’re trailing their biggest rival 3–1 in the playoffs, likelier than not to get eliminated on Torontonian ice in Game 5, they have in many ways won. How? By putting the fear of God into the Toronto Maple Leafs.
To be fair, the Leafs mostly put the fear of God into themselves. They’ve accumulated the fear of God over the last fifty years, ever since the NHL finally added a seventh team, became a competitive league, and rendered the Leafs unable to compete. The Leafs are chokers. Underachievers. Mice in tigers’ bodies. The Leafs are a punchline. A punching bag. A team with an annual tradition befitting their name, one of turning red, shriveling up, and falling to the dead earth.
The Senators? They’re just usually pretty bad.
I do think the Sens will come back and win this series, because optimism costs nothing and it would be funny and the common theme across my five years of Ottawa Senators fandom has been the Sens always doing the funniest thing possible. If there is a funny thing that can happen, the Sens will make it happen, sometimes in ways previously not known to be possible.
Realistically, though, the Sens probably won’t win Game 5. Which makes last night a really big deal. Jake Sanderson’s a hero now, as we long thought he would be. The Sens did not get swept, as we briefly feared they would. Before Game 5 starts, we get three full days of saying “Sure would be funny!” If the Leafs do win, we don’t even have to walk that back. It would’ve been funny! And they are the Leafs.
The best part is that the Leafs have to think about it now. They have to remember all those other times they let down the plurality of Canada. They have to think about how losing this series would be worse than any of those other times. They have to tell themselves this isn’t a big deal, that they’ll win Game 5, and that even if they don’t they’ll have two more chances. They’ll know it’s a big deal. They’ll fear that by thinking about losing Game 5, they’ve already doomed themselves to a loss. They’ll start mentally preparing for Games 6 and 7. They’ll try to stop thinking about it. They won’t be able to stop thinking about it. Everywhere they turn, some guy will look like Ridly Greig.
Where Toronto really erred here was in winning Game 3. Lead 2–1, and nobody will make that much fun of you even if you do blow the series. Lead 3–0? If you’re the Leafs, people will make fun of you before Game 4 even arrives. We were already joking about the Leafs blowing a 3–0 lead four minutes after the Leafs secured a 3–0 lead. These are the Leafs, and these are the Sens, and whether it ends 4–1 or 4–3, this series has become exactly what it should be: The Leafs fighting decades of futility and years of recent wilting. The Sens messing around.
Other thoughts:
- Is Anthony Stolarz on his heels? Might be time to shake it up in Toronto.
- Tim Stützle took some heat a few days ago for saying the special teams gap was mostly luck. The Sens scored on the power play, scored on a penalty kill, and killed off three penalties, the last one the four-minute Batherson high-stick in overtime.
- That four-minute PK was heroic and it also felt like the Sens were about to allow a goal ten seconds after it ended.
- Batherson’s been a mess this series. Playing so much worse than his norm that you’d think he was a Maple Leaf.
- There were no pregame puck offenses.
Game 5 on Tuesday. 7 PM Eastern. Back on ESPN, so the TV guys will actually be in the building again.
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