Monday LNN: Now We're Stepping Into Another Zone
It's not the end this time!
As the immortal Pierre Dorion once said: "The rebuild is done. Now we're stepping into another zone". On either Saturday or Sunday of this week, the Ottawa Senators will break their eight year hiatus and return to the Stanley Cup Play-Offs. We've got lots of great coverage coming in the days ahead, I can't wait to share it with all of you.
For now, feast on some links, news, and notes from Ottawa and around the hockey world:
- Good news on the injury front for the Sens: while Brady Tkachuk won't play tomorrow against Chicago, he will be ready for Game 1 of the play-offs.
- Julian McKenzie has a piece for the Athletic arguing that the Pinto-Greig-Amadio line could be Ottawa's most important in a play-off series. I'm not sure I'd go quite that far, the first line will be the most important since they will play the most, but having a third line that you can count on to handle tough match-ups is very valuable indeed.
- Likely Sens' first round opponent the Toronto Maple Leafs are under an intense amount of pressure, writes Travis Yost. I agree, and I suggest they are ripe for an upset!
- In case you missed it, Steve Staios made an appearance on the TSN broadcast of yesterday's game and said some Staios-like things.
- The Edmonton Oilers will be without Mattias Ekholm for at least their first round series against the Los Angeles Kings. Edmonton's probably still my pick to get through, but that defensive group is awfully thin as it is and missing Ekholm will hurt.
- With the play-offs nearly set, ESPN has their first stab at an off-season plan for all the teams missing out on the fun. It's not that I have a particular interest in any of these squads, but I shared this link because it gives me great joy to open it and realize the Sens are not included in the list.
- Zeev Buium, one of the players the Sens were reportedly considering at seventh overall last year, had himself quite a year in Denver and has signed a three-year ELC with the Minnesota Wild.
- Murat Ates has a quality deep dive into what made the Winnipeg Jets such a formidable hockey machine this season. Ates suggests that the players really did take last year's humiliating elimination to heart, and it's hard to argue with quotes like this when they've just won the President's Trophy:
“We have levels that we need to find this offseason. I hope it stings for all of us into the summer and we use it as motivation.”
That was Josh Morrissey, speaking shortly after the Game 5 loss to Colorado. It was the first in a series of self-aware statements by Jets leadership. Winnipeg had put together a quality regular season for the second straight year but, despite its progress, had been pushed out of the first round just as easily. In the days that followed, Morrissey’s teammates would add to his urgency.
