TOUGH ONE, OTTAWA

I knew there was a reason I'd kept that Photoshop job of then-Ottawa goalie Patrick Lalime on my hard drive for the last two years.

Truth be known, Don Cherry had it mostly right during the intermission between the third period and overtime, when he said that Sens goalie Ray Emery would unfairly bear the brunt of criticism from fans and media after giving up six goals on 22 shots in regulation time. And that before Buffalo's Chris Drury scored 18 seconds into overtime, giving the Sabres a who-da-thunk-it 7-6 win in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semifinal and having Ottawa what, to borrow Bill Simmons' term, is a Category Five Stomach Punch Loss, save for the fact it's only one game.

It's an absolute no-no to give up a goal in the first or last minute of a period, and Ottawa did that four times tonight, along with giving up Derek Roy's short-handed goal that briefly tied it 5-5 with less than two minutes to go in regulation. Of those five tallies that, from an Ottawa perspective, should never have happened and just can't be brushed off, Emery was really at fault on only one: Ted Connolly's game-tying goal with 11 seconds left that tied the game for the fifth time.

A goalie who's not fighting the puck would have not have played that one the way Emery did. What happened was Derek Roy, whose only option was to get the puck toward the net and try to create a rebound or scramble situation, took a weak shot that Emery didn't try to trap or bat toward the corner. Instead it went behind the net, too far for the goalie to flop on it and let his chances on his team winning the ensuing faceoff and pinning the puck against the boards.

Buffalo poked the puck out front, Emery missed a second chance to corral the puck, and Connolly backhanded it in. Tie game.

Bad luck, yes, but the point is, when your goalie who's on a post-season roll -- think Dominik Hasek in '98 and '99, J.S. Giguere in 2003 -- somehow, some way, those kinds of goals don't end up going in.

But still, Emery isn't the biggest problem Ottawa has. He's their only option in goal, so the Sens have no recourse but to circle the wagons and trot out the standard playoff cliché about how goaltending isn't the issue. And they'd be right, because Ottawa has much more to worry about. When a team lets the lead slip away five times in one night, it can't all be one guy. Anton Volchenkov was coughed up the puck to lead to Drury's game-winner, and right alongside him on the goat platform was fellow Euro-rearguard Andrej Meszaros, who was beaten by Roy on Grier's goal 35 seconds into the game, and got caught on a pinch on Roy's short-handed tally late in the third.

The spin for Ottawa: this was their loss more than it was Buffalo's win. The best thing the Sabres did was hang around and let Ottawa give them an opening.

Other noteworthy stuff about this game:

Daniel Alfredsson and Chris Kelly are the two Senators who must be feeling the heat to score a goal. Alfie, Ottawa's captain, now has two goals in his last 20 post-season games, although he played well tonight and set up the Brian Smolinksi tally that put Ottawa ahead (briefly, as it turned out) with 1:03 left in regulation. Kelly had about four scoring chances in the third period when Ottawa led 5-4, including a near-miss on a deflection. Those loom large now.

Other notes on the night:

• Has a team ever blown a lead twice in the final 100 seconds of a playoff game? Someone get the Elias Sports Bureau on this.
• Another one for the researchers: when was the last 7-6 overtime game? When was the last time a team was scored on in the first or last minute in all four periods?
• No one noticed at the time but Sabres d-man Jay McKee might have made a smart play when he goaded Peter Schaefer into taking a penalty after the Sens' fifth goal. Four-on-four hockey is much better than 5-on-5.
• Maybe Senators fans have a point when they complain about Bob Cole and Harry Neale, who were back together on Hockey Night in Canada after being separated for Round 1. On the OT winner, Neale said, "And the goal scorer for Buffalo, Mike Grier." Easy enough mistake to make -- Grier wears No. 25, actual overtime hero Chris Drury wears No. 23, and both shoot right. Except Grier is three inches taller, 40 pounds heavier, and you know, black.
• What's Ottawa doing between home playoff games? With Scotiabank Place booked for a Dora the Explorer show this weekend, Game 2 won't be until Monday. Bryan Murray would be wise to get his team out of the capital region for the next 48 hours.
• This is devastating for Ottawa right now, but the beauty of playoff hockey is you can be brutal one night and look like a completely different team the next. This isn't much different than Game 2 of the Tampa Bay series, except that the magnitude's been multiplied by about 10.

Tough one, Ottawa. Take heart, though, those mistakes can be corrected. And unlike most of the mistakes in Ottawa, you don't have to wait until election day to fix them. Ha-ha-ha.