The Ottawa Senators Playoff Preview

The Ottawa Senators have got to feel lucky to squeek into the playoffs with the 8th place in the Eastern Conference since they lost 6 of their last 8 games, including 4 straight regular time loses to close out the season.  With that late season stumble, they own the worst record by any team in the playoffs.

The playoffs are a whole new season though, forget the regular season and start anew, or that is at least how every member of the Ottawa Senators needs to look at it.  And for the Senators they could easily move past an average season to great playoff heights, because when you look at this line-up you see a ton of playoff experience and a few Stanley Cup rings! In total, there are actually 12 rings in the locker room, held by 10 guys, now that is what you call a ton of playoff experience. It is actually pretty baffling when you look at the roster how they weren't one of the top teams in the league.  But again for all the regular season miscues, they still have great optimism for these playoffs.

Led by their Captain Henrik Zetterberg, who missed 27 games with an injury, their Superstar Evgeni Malkin, who led their team with 1.125 ppg, and their monster deadline acquistion, Zdeno Chara, it's not hard to have some faith that they will figure things out.  The more you look at this roster, the more you start to believe that this 8th seed really does have a chance at the cup.

Besides the three aforementioned perennial all-stars, you have Rick Nash, one of the best pure goal scorers in the game, Jiri Hudler, an ultra talented winger, Jordan Staal, an all-around two-way Center and Patric Hornqvist, a talented sniper, to round out the top six.  Their third line is impressive with Brandon Sutter centering Michael Frolik and Tomas Fleishmann and is definitely one of the better ones in the league.  Their fourth line is a great shut down line with  a ton of experience in Vernon Fiddler, Drew Miller and Tomas Kopecky.

Their D corp is also very strong, as they have Yandle, one of the best puck movers in the league to accompany the Big Z!  They have the reliable Marc Methot, to go with veterans and former Cup winners, Brad Stuart and Rob Scuderi, along side the young but solid Danny Dekeyser and Marco Scandella.  All of this in front of Cory Crawford, who has also won a cup.

So they have a team that could go far, but since they fell to 8th, they face the class out of the East, the New Jersey Devils.

The Devils are led by Ryan Getzlaf, you had a tremendous year, accompanied by veterans Patrick Elias, Brian Campbell, Ales Hemsky, Mike Cammalleri, with the very good young guys in Kyle Okposo, Matt Read, and Alex Killorn.   The Devils are a well rounded team, with very good goal scorers, as the had 6 guys in double digit scoring on the year, and very solid defensive minded players like Marcel Goc, Mike Weaver, Andy Greene, Jordie Benn, etc.  Cory Schneider mans the net, and he had a solid GAA of 2.36 this year.

This will be a very hard fought series, that could easily go 7 games!  Certainly a tough draw for both teams, but the Devils can't be happy to win the Eastern Conference yet still play one of the more talented rosters in the league