ALLARD: ONWARD, OTTAWA...

Jean-Pierre Allard of Smarting Senators weighs in following the Senators' 3-2 series-clinching win over the Devils in Game 5 last night.

After seeing their team get outshot 11-3 and go the dressing room down 1-0 after one period, and then continuing to look sluggish for the first four minutes of the second, Senators fans could have been excused for thinking, "Oh boy, here we go again."

This is not your Senators of old.

This team, while continuing to happily ride the incredible output from its top line of Daniel Alfredsson, Dany Heatley and Jason Spezza, who teamed up for another six points, has slowly and surely started to get relief from its secondary players.

Tonight, just when the team looked lost and aimless, Antoine Vermette chimed in just past the four-minute mark of the second period, simply taking over the game in the Devils' offensive zone with some brilliant stick-handling. That culminated in him causing Richard Matvichuk to carelessly throw the puck away around the back of his net only to see a pinching Tom Preissing let go a shot at Martin Brodeur's net which Vermette tipped in to give the Senators some much needed life. (Say, maybe Vermette should be getting some time on the second power-play unit.)

That was the game and the series right then and there as the Devils never quite recovered. When Jay Pandolfo was sent off for goalie interference six minutes later, with Andrej Meszaros inexplicably escaping a similar sanction for his obvious retribution on the Devils' forward, Jason Spezza beat Brodeur with a nasty fluttering wrister to his left to put Ottawa ahead to stay.

That Spezza too had got away with a clear cross-check earlier was yet another sign that when a team is hot, everything goes their way, including non-calls from the officials.

Alfredsson's partially screened goal at 17.28 of the period, another soft goal against Brodeur, was a mere formality because by that time, there was no air left in New Jersey's big playoff balloon, so frustrated they were with their inability to mount any kind of pressure on Ottawa, especially during their inept power play which, really, was the difference in the series.

That, and the stark contrast between the two captains: a re-energized and healthy Alfie bent on proving his detractors wrong versus a clearly-hurting Patrick Elias, who was limited to one goal in the series and only two over his last 22 games, including the regular season.

Add to that an uncharacteristically shaky Brodeur at one end and steady play from Ray Emery at the other end and it's quite easy to see how Ottawa put Jersey away in five games.

The Devils pulled to within one when Scott Gomez scored his second of the night with 40 seconds left in the proceedings, but New Jersey never did threaten after that. It did appear that a Chris Phillips icing was not called which would have given the Devils a face-off in the Sens' zone with about 12 seconds left.

Devils coach-GM Lou Lamoriello didn't voice any kind of protest though, perhaps also resigned to accept the evidence. Namely that his team was simply not up to the task against a Senator team that continues to dumbfound the many experts, having needed only 10 games to eliminate Sid The Kid and Monsieur Brodeur, and is now the lone Canadian entry left in the NHL playoffs.

How soon before the Senators start receiving telegrams of good wishes from coast to coast, just like the Montreal Expos -- remember them? -- did at the height of their 1979 pennant race against the Pittsburgh Pirates when they became, for a time, Canada's team?

Or that someone starts chucking beaver tails on the pristine ice surface of Scotiabank Place?

Elsewhere (from Sager):

Red Wings 4 Sharks 1 (Detroit leads series 3-2): Time to coin a new phrase: Pulling a Luongo.

That's where a goalie who's carrying a team snaps all of a sudden and pulls a bantam house league goof in a big game. The Sharks' Evgeni Nabokov, who's been playing well all playoffs, made a killer error late in the second period of a 1-1 tie, botching a clearing attempt and passing the puck right to Pavel Datsyuk, who of course plays for Detroit.

The Sharks were dead in the water after that and came out for the third period only out of professional courtesy. Regardless, San Jose is good enough to win on home ice Monday and force The Decider back in Detroit.

Poolies who stocked up on Red Wings rejoiced: The Datsyuk-Henrik Zetterberg-Tomas Holmstrom line had eight points, while Joe Thornton and Jonathan Cheechoo were goose-egged. (What else is new?)

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.