ALLARD: IN TYPICAL OTTAWA GOVERNMENT FASHION, SENS STIFLING JERSEY BY COMMITTEE

Jean-Pierre Allard of Smarting Senators weighs in following the Senators' 3-2 win over the Devils in Game 4 last night.

Thanks mainly to the A&A two-man wrecking crew (Alfie and Anton), the M&M boys (John Muckler and Bryan Murray) can put those luggage they likely had started packing last November back in their closets, after their suddenly very good Senators took one more step towards reaching the Eastern Conference final last night at "Eugene's Stash."

The final score was 3-2 in another truer to form, closer encounter of the kind these two teams have built their playoff reputation -- the 5-4 opening game aberration aside – which provided just enough excitement to keep Ray Emery awake.

OK, so it was pretty exciting in the third, but you get my drift. If not, then please chime in to the Sabres-Rangers affair.

While the Devils continue to be devilled by a strange combination of 1/3 of their EGG line, Patrick Elias, playing more like an alias, power play paralysis and suspect goaltending from his éminence grise himself St-Martin, who is clearly off his game this spring, the Senators are stifling their opponents by getting contributions from every player, even Oleg "Sapristi" Saprykin who, with the exception of a totally dumb penalty, had an otherwise fine night.

Call this new Senator Squadron a work-by-committee to borrow a phrase from its much less effective sister organization, AKA the Fools On The Hill by the river overlooking Don Cherry's favourite province.

Need another sign that happy days are back for the Senators? Again, they found a non-dipsy-doodling or non-curling way to win a tight match and now lead the best of seven conference semi-final 3-1.

When Mike Fisher, at long last finally justifying the incredible adulation that fans, especially the young and female ones, have showered him with, scored his first goal of this post-season early in the third period on another shot that Martin Brodeur would surely like to have back, it was in the can. The Devils raised a scare by making it close again halfway through the third period on a screened shot from the point, courtesy of Jay Pandolfo, with half the period gone.

Not to play Devils' advocate, but the little chance that New Jersey had of sending this game into overtime was stifled by the overzealous zebras who punished them with 2 absolutely marginal calls in the last five minutes of the game. Sooner, rather than later, Gary Bettman and His Blooming Idiots will need to explain to us all, once again, how you can't horizontally hook someone but are allowed to vertically deface someone else.

In the end, all that was left was for Brodeur to take a post-game shot at his counterpart, "Razor" Emery, and say that "he hasn't looked too good."

Again, without falling off the bandwagon, I have to say the Sens are winning despite Emery looking like anything but a No. 1 goalie. While this has had no consequences thus far, it may yet prove to be the Sens' Achilles' heel later on, either in the next few games, or in the next series.

Seeing that only 20 of 215 teams have ever come back from a 3-1 deficit in NHL playoff history, Ottawa absolutely needs to continue its winning ways in Game 6 on Saturday night and deliver the knock-out punch to a clearly outgunned adversary.

For imagine all the much heavier Ottawa's playoff baggages of seasons' past will suddenly become, should they prove incapable of winning just one more game in any one of the next three. That would be the last thing this team and its community needs, or deserves, for that matter. Not to mention that it would make MLB's time-honoured lingo that " baseball is cruel" totally pale in comparison to what Ottawa's plight would become.

Still, I'd feel better knowing that Brodeur will not revert to past form and come up big again in the very next game after he sucked big time, or secure in the knowledge that Emery's left wrist is as solid and reliable as his dress code.

CHERRY BOMBS

P.S. If Don Cherry is to continue using his Oaf's Corner segment as a political platform to boost the chance he foolishly thinks he has of being named to the Senate by Harper's Valley PTA (Pretty Tame Administration) by patriotically bringing in the army on a freaking hockey broadcast, then perhaps he should stop being such an hypocrite by taking shots at "French Canadians."

Eh Donald, here's a newsflash: This is what citizens that speak Canada's second official language are called, as opposed to "French." Everyone else in this country has seemingly grasped that the latter is used to refer to citizens from France.

Only in Canada!

Jean-Pierre Allard is a freelance writer who has been following the Expos/Senators for MVN since 2004. In addition, he has covered the Ottawa Senators since 2004-05 on MVN and now will chronicle the 2007 Ottawa Lynx, the Philadelphia Phillies' Triple-A team.

His work has also been published in the Washington Times, Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Sun, Toronto Sun, Calgary Herald, Vancouver Province and Ottawa City Woman Magazine. As a sports historian, he has also appeared on Global TV, CBC radio and SRC radio.