How used are they to this sort of thing in Ottawa? The Team 1200 is broadcasting its "Fourth Annual All-Night Wake." Wait ... it's only the fourth year for this? Jason Pominville needed only a few seconds to neatly illustrate the difference between the Buffalo Sabres and the Ottawa Senators -- and why the Sens have and are doomed to post-season failure for the foreseeable future.
By dancing around Daniel Alfredsson and deking Ray Emery (both of whom deserved better) to score the short-handed goal in overtime that gave Buffalo a stunning 3-2 win and sent the Senators to their post-season doom, the little-known Sabre who started the season in the minors illustrated some basic truths that seem to be lost on the Sens themselves and their fans, who we'll lump together as the Denialists.
Buffalo made their own luck. Just think about why a player such as Pominville took off on a solo rush -- usually an exercise in futility, except in this case a forward was playing the point on the power play -- with his team down a man in overtime.
Reverse the teams in that scenario. It's more than likely the Ottawa guy does the smart, safe play -- rolls the puck into a corner and goes off for a change or at most, lets go a weak 25-foot shot. And there's the rub.
While other teams come up with that extra effort, year and year the song remains the same for the Senators: it's always a team of 20 players each looking around expecting one of the other 19 to get it done, to be The Guy. It's a team of second bananas.
The Sabres had to press the issue, and as so often happens, the first five minutes of overtime was the right time to do it. Ottawa should have wrapped it in regulation, but it all comes back to the Sens' mindset: Can't someone else do it?
You can't win in the playoffs unless you have a couple players who can be The Guy, that central figure whom all energy flows from. One dumb-ass theory I just heard on the post-game show was that the Sens struggle in the playoffs because their goal-scoring prowess creates a false sense of security.
Really?
So why didn't that happen (at least not after a couple playoff flops) in the 1980s to the Edmonton Oilers? Because Mark Messier was The Guy who set the tone for his team on and off the ice. Why didn't it happen to the late-'70s Montreal Canadiens? Because of guys like Jacques Lemaire and Serge Savard who were serious like a heart attack.
That false sense of security, so-called, didn't afflict the Pittsburgh Penguins in 1991 and '92, who were led by Mario Lemieux, or to the Colorado Avalanche during their championship runs. Joe Sakic wouldn't let it happen.
Such leaders are in short supply, but look at the rest of the NHL in these playoffs. In Edmonton, Ryan Smyth is The Guy most of the time; sometimes it's Chris Pronger. Or Jason Smith. Or Dwayne Roloson.
In San Jose, it's Patrick Marleau. Teemu Selanne and Scott Niedermayer have taken the Anaheim Mighty Ducks on their backs. Today, Scott Gomez was The Guy for the Devils when they were poised to get knocked out of the playoffs.
Look at the move Chris Drury pulled off to score Buffalo's second goal tonight -- cutting in from the corner while three Senators stood stock-still like beefeaters at Buckingham Palace. At that moment, Drury was The Guy for Buffalo.
While the Senators and their followers were carrying around the notion that they were the better team and really wanted to win, Drury did something to actually make it happen.
It all comes down to the 20 players in the dressing room. It's not John Muckler refusing to pull the trigger on a big deadline deal, although history will show he should have got more than Tyler Arnason, who never saw the ice in the post-season. It's not the coaching -- the Sens have now had equally egregious flops under both Jacques Martin and Bryan Murray.
In fairness to the Denialists, Ottawa could be up 3-2 heading to Game 6 back in Buffalo if someone off the second or third line -- think Martin Havlat in the Tampa Bay series -- had suddenly got hot. And yes, no one knew how playoff greenhorns like Jason Spezza, Andrej Meszaros, Dany Heatley and Patrick Eaves would react under pressure. Yes, they had injuries, but at this time of year, every team has injuries.
After the chances Dany (Mr. October) Heatley blew tonight, he better have been playing hurt.
Questions about changes will have to wait.
The question whether this is enough to move the Denialists to Stage 2, Anger.
It reeks of denial to say, as one of the radio guys just did, that the Senators' A-game is superior to Buffalo's A-game.
In the playoffs, you forget about the A-game. You're playing the same team several nights in a row, with each loss bringing the ride closer to the end. Everyone plays hurt. Every tendency, ever flaw is known to the other team. Grudges and grievances accumulate. Like Thomas Boswell once wrote about boxing, at its best it's beastly.
It's a different game, where you win with the B-game, C-game or D-game, if needed. That's what Buffalo did: ride a hot goalie, win the battles, play a rope-a-dope defence against a skilled team -- and bury your chances, like Pominville did.
Which brings us to one final question every Ottawa fan should ask: Why, why can't the Sens learn how to win ugly?
LAST SENATORS ITEM FOR TONIGHT
Much like Alfredsson on the game-winner tonight, Ottawa Mayor Bob Chiarelli got deked out of his jock by The Beast, in this case by a Buffalo satirical newspaper.
His Worship was gulled -- he says he was playing along, but of course he would say that -- into making a deal with a man purporting to be Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown that Ottawa would send a few high-tech jobs Buffalo's way in exchange for the Sabres dumping the series.
The Globe and Mail's Anthony Reinhart was all over this:
"I never imagined the call would go any further than my suggesting such a
deal before Chiarelli either laughed it off or chewed me out and hung up," wrote
Paul Jones, who made the call with the aid of a voice modulator. "Instead, I was
faced with the stunning fact that he was actually going for it."
Mr. Chiarelli says nothing on the tape to suggest otherwise. In fact, he
says the Senators "might be able to talk to Dell, or Nortel and, uh, get a few
volunteers who are prepared to move down to Buffalo if you can assure that the
Senators will win at least three out of the next four games."
Nor does he react to the ridiculous bits of bait delivered subtly by Mr.
Jones, not even when "Mayor Brown" breaks into sobs of gratitude at the end of
the call.
Deadspin also beat me to it. Like the Senators, I have to learn to step up my game. Unlike the Senators, I actually will.
Buffalo's highest elected official didn't get off easily. "Mayor Chiarelli" called his Buffalo counterpart proposing a wife swap, but that pranking was somewhat less successful.
OK, THE LAST, LAST SENATORS ITEM FOR TONIGHT
Highlights of the radio wake: Well, one caller just called Zdeno Chara "a fairy." This ought to be rich.
Another guy is suggesting dealing Anton Volchenkov to St. Louis for the No. 1 draft choice and using it on Phil Kessel. Riiiiiiight. After the way Kessel played at the world juniors, why would the Senators need another floater, albeit a ridiculously talented floater?
Still, 45 minutes in and only one Senators Denialists has let an F-bomb slip. Come on, people. Let it all out. Move on to Stage 2, Anger.
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2 comments:
Being a Buffalo fan and enjoying our team's success, after the game, we also used the "rope-a-dope" analogy. The third period was an excellent example of mind control - even though the Sens dominated play and even had a one or two serious chances, Buffalo was just buying time until the "Big Mistake". We were only getting scoring chances when Max and Roy were on the ice and on the occasional PP. Good analysis overall, though. The Sens were the more talented team and deserved to be favored and it was a close series. But, it's the outcome that matters. I am proud of the way the Sabres played.
Emery's inability to move laterally on goals 2 & 3 were a hindrance, no? He may've deserved better, but not that much.
Buffalo has now won 10 of their last 11 v. the Sens in the playoffs. I missed Muckler's tirade on ESPNEWS after the series - quite frankly I am surprised they even showed it (giving ESPN's proclivity for ignoring hockey altogether).
Great site lots of usefull infomation here.
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