Sens determined to put Game 1 in past and win next one
OTTAWA It all comes down to the endless debate over protecting the lead or going for a win.
It was Columbus Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella who coined the phrase “safe is death” during his days with the Tampa Bay Lightning.
And, if the Ottawa Senators don’t get back to playing the kind of hockey that helped them find success during the regular season, their stay in the NHL playoffs will be short-lived.
Ottawa blew a one-goal thirdperiod lead Wednesday, dropping Game 1 of the Eastern Conference quarter-final series against the Boston Bruins 2-1.
On Thursday, as the Senators prepare for Game 2 Saturday at the Canadian Tire Centre, they opted to hold an off-ice workout at the rink after meeting to discuss how they let the first game of the series slip from their grasp.
Brad Marchand scored the winner with 2:33 left in regulation to complete the Boston comeback. A day later, the loss still stung Ottawa head coach Guy Boucher.
“Going into the third, they just stuck with what they were doing and we didn’t,” Boucher said. “We didn’t change our game plan whatsoever, we didn’t want something different at all — but I didn’t think we managed it well mentally. We looked like we were scared to lose rather than hungry to win.
“We backed off for no reason, we weren’t going after them in their zone, the neutral zone and we packed it in our zone, kind of ‘cocooning’ in our (defensive) zone for no reason. That’s just a mental state for me. We were asking for trouble. We didn’t sustain what we were doing for 60 minutes and we paid for it.”
If the Senators head back to Boston down 2-0 in this series, they’ll be in even bigger trouble. It’s bad enough the Senators have already surrendered home-ice advantage. They’ve got time to recover if they can even this up and get back on track with a victory.
The playoffs are different because every victory is meaningful and every loss feels like it’s a disaster. Momentum plays a big role in every series.
As the Bruins hosted reporters at their Ottawa hotel on the off-day, they were able to sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.
The Senators preferred to look at this two-day break as an opportunity to shake off the defeat and look ahead to what it will take to win the series.
“The sun came up today. It’s a new day today. My first junior coach, and my only junior coach, told me that. Brent Sutter said, ‘The sun comes up and it’s a new day,’” Senators alternate captain Dion Phaneuf said. “In the playoffs, you have to find a way to move forward and learn from what you did well and learn from what you didn’t do so well.
“It’s a new day for us. We’re going to use this break in between (games) to get ready for Saturday but we’ll learn from the mistakes that we made.”
OK, we’ll agree with Phaneuf on his theory that the future still looks bright for the Senators. But dark clouds are approaching.
If the Senators scored more than one goal in the second, when they outshot the Bruins by a 12-0 count, the result could have been totally different.
“I don’t think we took advantage of the opportunities we had,” Senators alternate captain Kyle Turris said. “We had a couple of opportunities that if we bury them, we go up 2-0 and it’s a different game then.”
Boucher said the loss is merely a bump in the road.
“We didn’t do the job and we have to learn from it. We have to learn from our third period. That’s what playoffs are all about, moving forward and what can you learn and get better,” Boucher said. “That’s the experience we need to gain game after game. I knew that, so whether it’s today or another day, we would’ve needed to learn that at some point or another.”
The best bet for the Senators is to rise and shine, but it has to happen quickly.