Yes, it's back from the dead for the playoffs! Hopefully I'm not too rusty...let me know what you think guys

What you've missed

Beginning the season with very low expectations from almost everybody following hockey, including their own fans, the Ottawa Senators have been the most surprising team in the NHL. Their work ethic and never say die attitude can in no small part be attributed to their new coach, Paul McLean, who I honestly think should be a Jack Adams finalist when awards are being decided.

Not to be forgotten, several key players also stepped up and had huge seasons. Jason Spezza has gone a long way to silencing his critics with more than a point per game pace and over 30 goals to boot. After a challenging 2010-2011 season marred by injury, Daniel Alfredsson reached the 20 goal mark for the 13th time in his 16 NHL seasons. And Milan Michalek led the team in goal scoring with 35, a large number of which came on the road, which will be important given the Sens 8th seed.

But, by far, the Sens MVP this season has been Erik Karlsson. He has 78 points this season. 78!! He's quite easily become the highest scoring D-man in a single season in Ottawa Senators history, and he holds a 25 point lead over Brian Campbell and Dustin Byfuglien who are tied for 2nd in defensemen scoring.

Over the last week, however, the Sens have run cold, going 0 for 3 against Carolina, Boston and New Jersey. This has put them in 8th place in the East on a collision course with the conference champions, the New York Rangers.

Season series:

Sens won the series 3-1

29/10/2011 - Ottawa 5, Rangers 4 (SO)
09/11/2011 - Rangers 3, Ottawa 2
12/01/2012 - Ottawa 3, Rangers 0
08/03/2012 - Rangers 1, Ottawa 4

Injuries:

- Peter Regin has been out since December and will not return with an injured shoulder.

- Chris Neil took a nasty fall at practice this week and did not play in the last game of the season, however he is expected to be ready for the playoffs.

- For the Rangers, Steve Eminger has been out with an ankle sprain since mid-March, Mats Zuccarello underwent wrist surgery and is not expected back for the 1st round and Michael Sauer remains out with a concussion indefinitely.

Projected starting lineups:

Rangers

Hagelin-Richards-Gaborik
Callahan-Stepan-Anisimov
Fedotenko-Dubinsky-Boyle
Prust-Mitchell-Rupp

Girardi-McDonagh
Staal-Stralman
Bickel-Del Zotto

Lundqvist

Sens:

Greening-Spezza-Michalek
Foligno-Turris-Alfredsson
O'Brien-Smith-Neil
Daugavins-Winchester-Condra

Kuba-Karlsson
Gonchar-Cowen
Phillips-Carkner (or Gilroy)

Anderson

The Scouting Report

Brad Richards and Marian Gaborik are enough to give any opposing team fits - when they are both on their game, that is. Gaborik is as pure a goal scorer and sniper as you will ever see, and Richards makes plays happen in the offensive zone. Rookie Carl Hagelin is the grit on this line, but he's also got tremendous speed and can burn you down the wing.

However, there have been times this season when the first line has gone quiet, and the rest of the team struggles to pick up the slack (this should sound familiar to Sens fans...). Ryan Callahan is a heart and soul guy, very underrated, but his line also has a tendency to run quiet. Some of this must be attributed to the youth - Derek Stepan is 21 and Artem Anisimov is 23. How they will perform with a combined 11 games of playoff experience will be key.

Having said all of that, the Rangers' strengths lie in having a very capable group of grinding, defensive-minded forwards, a rock-solid D corps and a goalie that can single-handedly win the team tight games. Ruslan Fedotenko has big game experience - winning cups in Tampa and in Pittsburgh - and he has a history of showing up for the playoffs ready and willing to take on a big role. Mike Rupp has more than enough sandpaper and size to muscle the opposition off the puck in the corners. Dan Girardi is arguably one of the best shutdown D in the entire league and will likely be on the ice whenever the Spezza line comes out. And Henrik Lundqvist is a serious contender for the Vezina trophy this year.

In short, the Rangers win their games not by a wild run and gun game, but by playing a strong team defense and relying on their A-grade talent to give them a lead to defend.

Keys to Victory

- Huge effort on specialty teams. Playoff hockey is tight and chances will be hard to come by. The Sens PP has been very hot at times and also very cold at times. The Rangers will not give you a lot of even-strength chances, so capitalising on the PP will be huge. The PK will also have to be on its game to stop the likes of Richards and Gaborik.

- Score early and start strong. The Rangers love playing with a lead and stifling teams in the 3rd period. Ottawa has not started games well, but instead have been pretty good at coming back from a deficit in the 3rd this season. That recipe probably won't work here, especially without the advantage of home ice.

- Use the psychology. Ottawa is the only team in the East that Lundqvist has a losing record against, and the Sens won 3 out of 4 meetings between these two clubs including a game at MSG. In many ways, being the underdog while having the Rags number all season should give the Sens confidence in being able to supply the upset of the 1st round.

- Connect on that first pass. Ottawa is at their best when the breakout is fast and they are breaking through the neutral zone with big speed. Conversely, the Sens are at their worst when they are held up in the neutral zone and they get into a bad habit of not moving their feet. Despite his big season points-wise, Karlsson is relatively untested in the playoffs and it will be his ability to move the puck under intense pressure that will be a big factor.

The X Factor

I'm going to make a bold prediction here...Kaspars Daugavins is going to be this year's Sean Bergenheim. He has a remarkable amount of hustle on the puck and battles hard in all 4 corners of the rink. Despite limited opportunities, his touch around the net at times this year has been superb. However, his one weakness is that he turns over the puck. If he can work on that and also deal with the increased pressure of the playoffs, watch out. Look for him to be tried on Spezza's wing at some stage.

Who's Hot?

- Brian Boyle has 4 points in 4 games.

- Marian Gaborik has 6 goals in 8 games.

- Daniel Alfredsson has 5 goals and 9 overall points in 6 games.

- Jason Spezza has 8 points in 6 games.

GO SENS GO!!!

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Woo-hoo, best scenario came through!

I truly beleive the SENS didn't bring their A game against Carolina, certainly should have beaten the depleted Bruins, and was expecting a 1-0 loss agaisnt the Devils.

I have full confidence in the SENS beating the Rangers in the first round.

Sure once the SENS made the playoffs, the claimed that they were gonna try hard the last 3 games, but obviously did not!

GO SENS GO!

Great read, Matt

Thanks, Jas.

Wow, awesome article Matt! You're spot on about MacLean - I'd even go as far as saying he should win it outright, but I suppose there's just a BIT of bias there... The only thing I disagree with, and it's not by much, is Karlsson as our MVP. In my opinion, Spezza still takes that monicker.

Here's to hoping Neil comes back at 100%, and also that the Playoffs are a bit too much for Hagelin to handle... not that I relish seeing Callahan skating with Richards and Gaborik mind you!

Completely agree with your keys to victory. Special teams will be paramount, the Rangers are maybe the best closers in the league and the Sens shouldn't bank on any third period heroics, and we definitely need to play with speed; MacLean's way! Also, I had no idea that Lundqvist had a winning record against every team but the Sens. Thanks for teaching me that, and if there actually is something to that, then the Sens need to do everything in their power to capitalize on it.

Bold prediction about Daugavins being tried with Spezza, I will look for that anxiously

Again, great work Matt. You should really come start up some chat with Matches and I on the NHL Intermission board and we can get just a basic blog up. If each of us writes just one article a week we would still have an average of one new article every 2-3 days!

One final criticism though -- needed more FOLIGNO!

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Thanks Josh

I do agree that Spezza had a huge part in this team's success. I guess that Karlsson for me just became such a big player for us almost overnight. Kinda like Spezza went from 6th gear to 7th gear, and Karlsson went from 3rd gear to 7th. We couldn't have made the post-season without either of those two, that's for certain.

And re: Foligno, lol, I couldn't list everybody! I already thought the article was super long anyways. I do my best not to ramble...

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This was dearly missed, great read.

Thanks AF, greatly appreciated.

Funny how Karlsson has more points than Gaborik or any NYR player this season. Spezza does too as well of course!

GO SENS GO!

Just finally got around to reading the whole thing. Excellent, nice job Matt.

Spezza and Karlsson will definitely see a ton of Girardi and McDonagh. Will be interesting to see how they respond. And perhaps even more interesting to see whether MacLean tries to get away from that matchup or just rolls with it.

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Thank you sir

It will be tough on the road to get away from them, plus Girardi is well used to playing a ton of minutes (usually in the 26+ minutes range). It could be that Spezza is doubled on a different line to try and break up the line matching.

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Or maybe we can see some Kyle Turris clutchness to step it up?

Yeah, Turris + Alfie need to be active in the zone to keep some heat off of Spezza's crew. I worry about Greening though...I see him as the weak link in the top 6, hopefully he proves me wrong.

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Could be where Zibanejad will be forced to step in.... at least we've gotten rid of Butler.

Yeah, Butler has been all kinds of useless unfortunately.

6 HOURS TO GO!!!!!!!

I really don't see Zibanejad as being ready to step into a top-six position and make any kind of real impact.

Silfverberg, on the other hand could, but god damned Brynäs won't lose. They're in the Elite League finals now and the earliest possible time that series could end would be the 15th with a Brynäs sweep.

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Are we in the same situation with Silfverberg as we are with Zibanejad? A game burns a year off the contract?

No, Matt. A year is going to be burned off of Silfverbergs ELC this year wether he plays in the NHL or not. So bringing him over would probably be for the best if we can, get him some experience coming into camp next year seeing there is a 99.9% chance he will be playing with the sens anyways.

No matter what we do with Silfverberg, we lose a year off his contract. BUT he IS in the same position in one category as Zibanejad. He will lose a year off his ELC, BUT he wont come any closer to UFA Status. A Player has to play at least 40 games in a season to lose a year to UFA status, same goes for Zibanejad. Even if we burn the first year off his contract, he wont get any closer to UFA status.

EDIT: The sens have people over in sweden apparently working things out so he can come over right after brynas is done their series (which hpefully will be sunday). So if this is a long series, or the sens make it to the second round, there is a good chance we will see him in at least a few games!

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"By the age of 18, the average American has witnessed 200,000 acts of violence on television, most of them occurring during Game 1 of the NHL playoff series."

Thanks for the detailed reply Volched, very informative