SENS REGROUP AFTER TOUGH WEEKEND LOSSES
Players ready to move on and know they’re still in good position to lock up playoff spot
Keep calm and carry on.
That was the message the Ottawa Senators sent Monday as they tried to make their way through troubled waters in the final stretch of the NHL regular season.
While the Senators weren’t good at all getting swept on the weekend by the Montreal Canadiens, including an ugly 4-1 loss at the Bell Centre on Sunday night, Ottawa players were looking to stay on an even keel as they prepared to try to clinch a playoff spot in the 11 remaining games.
This club is in control of its own destiny going into its game against the Boston Bruins here Tuesday night, but it’s in the Senators’ best interests to put a stop to their four-game losing skid (0-2-2) immediately and get a playoff spot wrapped up quick.
After the back-to-back losses against Montreal, the Senators opted to hold a team meeting and lunch at their Boston Common hotel Monday. The message was simple: They’ve bounced back from bad efforts before; they just have to do it again.
“The strength of this team all year has been finding a way to get our game back,” alternate captain Dion Phaneuf said. “A strength of our group is that we find a way to come back and we’re confident in the way that we play and we’re confident with where we’re at.
“We’ve done a lot of really good things to put ourselves in a position that we’re in. Did we have the weekend that we wanted? No, but that happens in parts of seasons and it just happens that we’re going through these things right now. We’re confident, if we play our game, we’ll come out of it.”
Starting with Tuesday’s game here, the Senators play eight of their final 11 on the road. This week’s opponents aren’t easy, either, with Sidney Crosby and the Pittsburgh Penguins at Canadian Tire Centre on Thursday preceding another matchup with the Habs at the Bell Centre on Saturday.
The Senators can’t afford to pout about Sunday’s performance against Montreal. The reality is they need to be better.
“There’s no way to sugar-coat it. We didn’t play our best, we didn’t play our system the way we wanted, we had breakdowns that were uncharacteristic of our team, but it’s done now and we have to move forward,” Phaneuf said.
“We’ve got a really big game coming up and it’s going to be a challenge, but they’re fun games to be part of as players and we’re right in the thick of things and we’re confident in the abilities of our team.”
Captain Erik Karlsson noted the club was inevitably going to have stretches like this and there wasn’t any cause for major concern. Let’s face it, Sunday was awful, but the Senators played pretty well in three of the past four games, losing one in overtime and another in a shootout.
“I still think we’re a really good team. We believe in ourselves and I have no issues with what’s going on right now,” Karlsson said. “It’s a great learning experience and it’s one of those cycles that you go through throughout the year. We have to embrace it.
“We have to learn from the experience we have here. We’ve lost four in a row, but, if you’re going to go through it, I’d rather do it now.”
Make no mistake, Karlsson would like to turn this around immediately.
“It’s a long year,” he said. “We’ve been really consistent all year, and this is the first time that we’ve faced some adversity. We have to find a way to win games when we aren’t feeling our best and we’ve got to learn how to deal with that.
“We’ve got tough games coming up against great opponents and we’ve got to keep moving forward and build on what we’ve had success with in the past. We’ve got a great group of guys and we’re going to figure this out. There’s no worries. It’s upsetting to lose two games to Montreal in a row.”
Phaneuf said the goal was to make the playoffs with a good seeding in the East.
“The way I look at it is you want to finish as high as you possibly can and you want to get as many points as you possibly can and wherever you finish is where you finish,” Phaneuf said.
“I don’t look at it like, ‘Oh we’ve got to finish here or there.’ It’s not about picking opponents, it’s about picking where you finish. It’s about trying to get as many points as you possibly can to finish as high as you can to give yourself the best chance.”
A win would go a long way in solving a lot of issues.