The playoffs kick off tonight with my Senators playing the defending champs, the Pittsburgh Penguins. I’m so looking forward to the Sens kicking some Penguin butt. All year watching the standings I was hoping the Sens would get a crack at the champs in the playoffs.

Many of the series previews I’ve read point to the ill fated 2008 playoff matchup where the Senators were skunked 4-0 in their Conference Quarterfinal matchup. The problem with using this as a gauge is that the Senators were a mess at that point. Daniel Alfredsson had received a concussion by Mark Bell of the Maple Leafs in the second to last game of the season. The team had been on a swoon pretty much the whole calendar of 2008 after a torrid start to the season. John Paddock, their coach to start the season had been canned with with less then 20 games to go in the season. The dressing room was mess, with many personal player rifts and rumours of drug issues. The reality is this team was sinking fast and probably wouldn’t have made the playoffs had the season extended another week. Every team in the Eastern Conference wanted to play the Sens in the first round. So much so that the Penguins actually threw the last game of the year to assure themselves a matchup with the Sens.

So luckily for Ottawa much of what ailed the team at that point has been resolved. Bryan Murray shipped out much of the negative dressing room elements and built a much more gritty, hard nosed team for the 2010 edition of the Senators. This also isn’t the same Penguins team that Ottawa faced in 2008. Now this is a still young, but now experienced group of players looking to get the their third consecutive Stanley Cup finals appearance.

It’s going to be an uphill battle, but I think the Senators have it in them to beat the Pens. After watching this team tear off 11 and 6 game winning streaks toward the end of the season I’m inclined to believe this team definitely has another gear to their game. They no longer rely as heavily on their first line as they once did, now getting contributions from their top 3 lines on a regular basis. While on these streaks the team was winning by playing a total team game and doing all the little stuff well. This was exactly the type of hockey the Sens played during their 2007 playoff run. The 2007 Senators were unheralded as well, with many analysts picking the up and coming Penguins to pull the upset in the first round.

What the Sens really need to win this series is solid goaltending. Ottawa is pinning their hopes on rookie Brian Elliott to pull them through. While I think every Sens fan wishes they had a tender with playoff experience, obviously we don’t have that luxury. Looking at Elliott’s stats as compared to Marc-Andre Fleury’s, Elliott actually has a better save percentage and goals against average then Fleury this year.

The Sens have done a good job neutralizing Sidney Crosby over his career. With the shutdown pairing of Phillips and Volchenkov the Sens should be able to contain Sid The Kid. That just means their other pairings have to contain Malkin, who is just back from an injury and the rest of the Pens lineup. This does seem quite possible. The Sens and Pens split their season series, with both teams getting a blowout win and each picking up a 4-1 win along the way. It’ll be an interesting series as neither team has actually played a close scoring game against the other, as it typically the case with playoff hockey.

My Pick
Senators in 6