PK woes spell playoff failure

Unit must regain early-season form for team to advance

FAR AWAY EYES

During his first intermission interview on TSN, Senators GM Pierre Dorion casually slipped in the fact that Marc Methot skated earlier in the day and included him in the group of injured players (Bobby Ryan, Zack Smith) that will be back for the playoffs. This, of course, is big news for Ottawa. And Erik Karlsson ... Cody Ceci went from “out until the playoffs” to playing a team-high 22:57 in Game 80. Maybe he had the help of a witch doctor, and maybe the Senators weren’t being completely honest about his ETA back to the lineup … Ben Harpur gave the puck away to the only guy on the ice bigger than him (Zdeno Chara), but Craig Anderson could have bailed him out by playing Stafford’s wraparound better on the B’s goal. Not to rain on the parade that is celebrating the Senators’ return to the playoffs, but (yes, break out the umbrellas) they’ll be going home early if they don’t soon remember how to kill penalties.

Since Feb. 15, Ottawa has the worst PK in the NHL, operating at a piddly 70 per cent success rate heading into Thursday’s game against the Bruins.

Also heading into Thursday’s action, the Senators’ possible first-round opponents have power plays that ranked second (Toronto), third (Washington) and seventh (Boston) in the NHL.

Going forward, that is a certain recipe for failure from an Ottawa standpoint.

The Senators were short-handed just once against the Bruins — after a Mark Borowiecki tripping call on David Krejci 9:19 into the game — and they could only survive the first 1:18 of the penalty before Drew Stafford opened the scoring.

They wound up with a 2-1 shootout victory because they managed to stay out of the box the rest of the night.

What has happened to the Senators’ short-handed game? They were ranked among the top 10 in the category through the first half of the season, and now their PK is 22nd (before Thursday) in the league.

If Guy Boucher and his coaching staff had the answers, they’d probably fix the problem. In the meantime, they could have given Colin White his second NHL game on Thursday night.

White could have replaced one of the slumping short-handed specialists.