How Senators can claw back into a playoff spot

OTTAWA — Olympic hockey was fun. 

Now we are back to regularly scheduled NHL programming.

Sens nation will still be cheering for the red team, but this time with Jake Sanderson and Brady Tkachuk donning the colours. 

Will a random game in March hit the same as the Olympics for Ottawa Senators fans? Maybe not, but it sure will have a ton of intrigue, too. 

The Senators sit six points behind the Boston Bruins for the final wild-card spot in the East. Catching up will be a tough feat, as Boston is on pace for 99 points. The Senators would have to go 18-7-0 to hit that mark, jumping past Toronto, Columbus, Florida and Washington, all of whom are also chasing a playoff berth. 

It’s hard, yet doable. 

The Senators have to hope they remain red-hot like they were heading into the break and those ahead of them cool down. 

The good news for Sens fans is that there are many teams still with playoff uncertainty that the Senators can potentially usurp. From the second spot in the Atlantic to the final wild-card spot, there is only a three-point gap.

Despite the hurdles, there are plenty of reasons to believe in these Senators. 

Speaking of the Olympics, it was a banner tournament for Senators players. Of course, Tkachuk and Sanderson won the gold while having very good tournaments, despite a middling performance from Tkachuk and his brother in the final. In the end, all they will remember is the gold around their neck. 

Both are scheduled to return to Ottawa on Wednesday, as they are expected to visit Washington on Tuesday to attend President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address.  

Meanwhile, the other star Senator Olympian, Tim Stutzle, finished second in the Olympic tournament in goals with four. 

If the Senators’ Big Three can carry their play from Milan to the nation’s capital, that’ll help Ottawa go on a run. All three are on pace for either career highs or — in the case of Stutzle and Tkachuk — as more than a point-per-game players, which puts them on pace to match their career-best offensive seasons from 2022-23. 

Simply put: your stars must be your stars in the NHL. 

The challenge will be getting back up to game speed for the rest of the non-Olympic Senators. 

Even a 12-year veteran doesn’t have experience with breaks like the 23-day Olympic hiatus for NHLers. 

“It’s a weird situation we’re in right now. I’ve never had this much practice time. It’s my first Olympic break, actually,” Senators forward Nick Cousins told Sportsnet.ca. 

“I think once Thursday comes, we’ll be ready. I think I can speak for the guys in the room. I think everybody’s kind of itching to get going here and play some games.”

“The guys are sick of practice,” Cousins joked.

In the meantime, the Senators’ structure that’s been so successful at stifling opponents will need to stay up to snuff. One part of their system that’s made them so good defensively has been their dump-and-chase game. The Senators rank second in the league at five-on-five dump-ins at 59 per cent — behind only the Florida Panthers, according to Sportlogiq. 

The idea behind dumping it in so frequently is that it helps your defence, because you remove the possibility of turning the puck over at the offensive blue line.

“I think just not beating ourselves is the biggest thing,” said Cousins. “I think, sometimes when you turn it over, especially at the blue line, it feeds the other team’s transition. And then that’s usually how goals are scored, with a turnover or breakdown where the onus comes on the player with the puck. You just got to play the percentages; if the D have a good gap, you got to put it behind them.”

Ottawa leads the NHL with the fewest expected goals allowed per game at five-on-five, according to Natural Stat Trick; a lot of that can be explained by coach Travis Green’s system. 

“You’re not spending more time in your own end by turning it over,” Cousins explained.

“I think you can ask any D in our room; they probably hate it when we dump it in (practice). Then they got to turn back, rather than if you make soft play at the line, they can just grab it and go the other way.”

Both Green and GM Steve Staios have mentioned trying to emulate the Florida Panthers, the dump-in kings of the hockey world for the past two seasons. 

Unfortunately, having the second-worst team save percentage at five-on-five means Ottawa’s defensive stoutness hasn’t been rewarded as it should.

The Senators have enough elite skill and structure in place to go on a run, but it likely will be up to their goaltender whether they are able to go on a Hamburglar-esque ride into a playoff spot.

The structure only works if it’s backed up.

The main story of the Senators’ season has been goaltending: specifically, the lack of saves. The Senators sit dead-last in team save percentage at .868. It’s a fine recipe for losses. 

When the Senators get adequate goaltending, they win at a high clip, specifically with Linus Ullmark in net. Ullmark played poorly to start the season but Ottawa still won with him in the net; then there was his personal leave for mental-health reasons and the social-media circus.

With Ullmark in Ottawa’s crease, the Senators have played at 101-point pace, while without him they’ve played at a 70-point pace. Despite Ullmark’s .884 save percentage this season (compared to the league average of .896), he’s been Ottawa’s best goaltender by a mile. 

There is a potential for a rested and a mentally fresh Ulmark to return to form. After returning on Jan. 31 from his leave of absence, Ullmark won his first two games while stopping 40-of-43 shots and looking like an elite netminder.

Plus, the Senators have been excellent in front of their netminders: they don’t even need excellent goaltending, just above average to solid goaltending, to heat up down the stretch.

At five-on-five, the Senators are top-five in almost every category in the league: expected goals share, shots for/against, scoring chances for/against, high-danger chances for/against.

Yet they are last in team save percentage. More saves will lead to more wins, like they had in their final six games before the Olympics, when they went 5-1-0 with a .905 save percentage — a hair over league average and ranked eighth in that span. 

Watching the Olympic final was reminiscent of many of the games this Senators season: one team was completely dominant but the other team’s goalie outduelled their own in a frustrating loss.

Shoulda, coulda, woulda. But like Team Canada, the Senators would benefit from the hockey goalie gods smiling on them. 

Adams’ Apples

• Stephen Halliday has been a welcome surprise for the Ottawa Senators, producing 11 points in 25 games while averaging only 8:08 minutes a night. Green said there is a “good chance” Halliday stays up with the big club. The young centre credits Drake Batherson and Sanderson for mentoring him.

“Drake’s kind of done the same thing (playing in the AHL),” said Halliday.

“I always try to ask him questions … about what he would do when he was in Belleville. And like some of the stuff like that happened to him in Belleville. Like, he had a five-point night in Belleville. Like, that’s crazy. That’s unheard of in the American League.”

Meanwhile, Halliday’s relationship with Sanderson continued, even with the star defenceman at the Olympics. 

“I talked to Sandy a lot, but I wouldn’t say I lean on him for advice too much,” Halliday said.

He leans more into a friendly rivalry off the ice. 

Sanderson and Halliday share a love for tennis. Sanderson said Andre Agassi’s autobiography Open has inspired him. Halliday’s father, James, was a standout tennis player at Western University. 

“I’m going to pump him in the spring,” said Halliday, about his determination to beat Sanderson at tennis. 

“I’m going to pump him up because I was practising all the break, when I was in Florida playing a couple rounds of tennis, and I was sending him photos while he was in his little dorm room in Milan.”

The two have sent clips of each other playing. 

Don’t get it twisted: it’s all love between those two. 

• Credit to Green for giving an opinion about settling the Olympic gold medal with three-on-three overtime. 

“No,” said Green when asked if he liked it. “I’m not sure I’ve heard a hockey person tell me otherwise.”

Imagine Game 7 of a Stanley Cup final being decided in three-on-three overtime. You couldn’t. The victors’ win would feel stained by an imperfect system.