Time for Senators to get desperate

After Game 3 debacle, quick rebound needed

Nin New York ow it’s the Ottawa Senators’ turn to put some added urgency into their play.

After watching his team produce its worst effort of the playoffs to date in Tuesday’s 4-1 loss to the Rangers at Madison Square Garden — which cut the Senators’ edge in their Eastern Conference semifinal to 2-1 — an unhappy Guy Boucher tried a different approach Wednesday. Ottawa’s head coach dispensed with practice, held a video session to go over the Game 3 loss one last time, and then told his players to put their focus squarely on Thursday night’s pivotal Game 4.

The message was simple from Boucher: be ready to go right from the drop of the puck.

“Start at the same time as them. That’s it or else we have no chance,” Boucher said Wednesday at the club’s Manhattan hotel. “We have to have the urgency and the battle level that we normally have, and we’ve got to match theirs.

“We know that they’ll be home and they’ll most probably display the exact same urgency as they did the last game. That’s where you start; then we have a chance to at least compete with them and that’s what we’re looking for.”

The good news for the Senators is they can’t be much worse than they were in Game 3. Until they lost by that three-goal deficit, every one of Ottawa’s previous eight playoff games had been decided by one goal — including four overtime victories in the five games they’ve been forced to do extra work.

While the Senators expected some serious push back from a desperate foe, they weren’t prepared for the level of intensity that the Rangers threw their way. But there is no time to dwell on their dismal Game 3 performance — the Senators know it’s time to move forward.

“We’re still up 2-1 in the series,” said winger Clarke MacArthur. “They had a great game. That’s good for them. That’s great. It’s one game. We know that. The biggest thing will just be coming out with a better effort. We’ve got to be a little bit more desperate.

“It’s time to get desperate. The next one is a really big game and it changes the whole series, so I think you’ll see that from us.”

Remember, the Senators came into this series playing the underdog card in front of anyone who would listen. The reality is they’ve been outplayed in two straight games by the Rangers and if they don’t have a better effort Thursday night, then they’ll be booking a trip back here next Tuesday for Game 6.

Make no mistake, the Senators are still sitting in a good spot, especially if they can find a way to get a split in New York before heading back to the Canadian Tire Centre for Game 5 on Saturday at 3 p.m. The Rangers, meanwhile, are only one loss away from being pushed to the brink of elimination, so they’re not out of the woods yet.

The Senators couldn’t manufacture desperation on Tuesday because they weren’t feeling it as they arrived at MSG with a 2-0 series lead. Perhaps this loss will serve as a good wake-up call that they can’t afford a sub-par effort and expect to win.

“You learn quick in the playoffs. I’ve been up 2-0 and I’ve been down 2-0 in a playoff series and some guys, when they’re living it, you can really see a good veteran team like the Rangers were desperate (Tuesday) night,” said winger Alex Burrows.

“You could see they were winning puck battles, they were first on pucks, they were blocking shots, they were doing all the right things to win the game and we’ve got to match that intensity (Thursday) night if we want to go home with a 3-1 lead.”

Boucher said the first period pretty much told the story in Game 3.

“There was nothing different that they did; when you look at the video, they just wanted it more than us,” he said. “They were first on (the) puck and they won the battles. Our percentages of being first on (the) puck and winning battles in the first period was below 35 per cent.

“It doesn’t matter what you do and it doesn’t matter what systems you use, if we’re playing like that we can’t win any game — not even a regular season game. That was below every single standard (they’ve set). We blocked 11 shots in the entire game and we’re always a team (around) 22 to 25 blocked shots a game. We’re at 11, so we’re not even close to our standards. We know that.”

Now it’s time to do something about it. Senators coach Guy Boucher says it’s up to his team to match the intensity level shown by the New York Rangers.