Postmortem: Ottawa Senators

Via: cbc.ca

The second round of the NHL playoffs is beginning to draw to a close, and the Ottawa Senators are the first or the soon to be deceased. Let's take a look at what went wrong for the 2013 edition of the Sens.

The Senators, after being a surprise playoff team last year, did little to change their roster during the offseason. They brought in depth players such as winger Guilaume Latendresse and defensemen Marc Methot and Mike Lundin, as well as signing core players Erik Karlsson, Chris Neil and Kyle Turris.

They started the 2013 season with a bang, suffering only one regulation loss through their first seven games, and getting otherworldy goaltending from Craig Anderson. Then in Februrary the injuries started.
Star center Jason Spezza went out with a herniated disc, Anderson suffered an ankle injury, winger Milan Michalek needed knee surgery, young defenseman Jared Cowan also needed surgery, and of course there was the devastating achillies injury to the reigning Norris winner Karlsson.

As a result, over the course of the season the Senators were required to dress a total of 14 rookies in their lineup. However, thanks to strong organizational depth and a good system employed by coach Paul MacLean (who received his second straight Jack Adams nomination for his efforts), the Sens were able to stay in the playoff race and actually finished with a higher seed than they did the year before. Turris led the way on offence, picking up 29 points in 48 games while 39 year old Sergei Gonchar had 27 points from the blueline and 40 year old captain Daniel Alfredsson had a solid season wtih 26.

By the time the playoffs rolled around, Anderson, Karlsson and Michalek were all back in the lineup, and with the strong goaltending from Anderson, were able to get past the Montreal Canadiens in five games. Then came a date with Pittsburgh in the second round, and everything fell apart. Anderson, who turned in an MVP caliber season this year, suddenly couldn't keep the puck out of the net, allowing 20 goals to the Penguins in just five games and getting pulled twice. Their penalty killing, which was first in the NHL at 88% in the regular season, fell to just 79% during the post-season. And the rookies which carried the team to the playoffs just couldn't come through against Pittsburgh. Jakob Silferberg, Mika Zibanejad, Jean-Gabriel Pageau and Cory Conacher, who each made a significant contribution for the Senators this year were a no-show against the Penguins, totaling just one goal and one assist combined.

So what comes next for Ottawa? Well, to be fair, this team got much further than anyone thought this could, considering the amount of adversity the team had to face this season, and the amount of ice time forced upon those young players. In the end, it likely will be a good thing for the organization going forward, as the experience gained by the youth movement in Ottawa this year will propel them to future success sooner rather than later. Though we may have witnessed the swan song of the greatest Senator ever, Alfredsson, the team still has a solid core with the likes of Spezza, Anderson and Karlsson leading the way. Add to that mix the strong coaching of MacLean, and the Sens will likely be a contending team for the foreseeable future. They may not currently be among the upper-echelon of teams in the NHL, as their performance against Pittsburgh proves, however it's a team still on the upswing that I expect will make regular playoff appearances for some time.