NEW YORK – Believe it.
The Ottawa Senators are moving on to the Eastern Conference Final, where Guy Boucher’s bunch will be much bigger underdogs than they ever were against the New York Rangers.
At one point the Senators coach suggested that his players were scared of being swept out of the second round. Instead they managed to dispatch the Rangers in six games thanks in large part to captain Erik Karlsson, who went into beast mode in Games 5 and 6.
He was a huge driver behind Ottawa’s most complete game of the series on Tuesday, scoring a goal and an assist in a 4-2 victory that stunned the crowd at Madison Square Garden.
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The Senators are now due to face either Pittsburgh or Washington. It will be the organization’s first trip to the final four since an appearance in the Stanley Cup Final in 2007.
In Boucher’s first season behind the bench, they built a foundation based on stout defensive play – the players nicknamed their style the “Kanata Wall” – but Ottawa won this series with its offence.
Karlsson was a force at both ends of the ice, displaying his all-world ability on the eventual winning goal by skating the puck out of his own end, taking a give-and-go with Bobby Ryan and beating Henrik Lundqvist high.
That made it 3-1 for Ottawa late in the second period – just minutes after Mika Zibanejad had put life in the building with a slick finish on a partial breakaway.
The Rangers brought another push in the final period, with Chris Kreider drawing it back to 3-2 in the opening minute, but Craig Anderson stood tall through a barrage of shots. The Sens goalie stopped Kreider on a breakaway and held the fort during a frantic final minute with the Rangers enjoying a 6-on-5.
Jean-Gabriel Pageau scored into an empty net.
After two ineffective performances here earlier in the series, the Senators changed everything from the seating arrangements in the visiting dressing room to their pre-game skate routine.
They then delivered a dream start.
Mike Hoffman gave them their first 1-0 lead of the series after a dominant sequence by Karlsson. The Swede carried the puck through the neutral zone, threw a hit to help Ottawa regain possession in the offensive zone and took the one-timer Hoffman tipped past Lundqvist.
The Senators managed to kill off six minutes in penalties – a holding-the-stick call on Alexandre Burrows and a double-minor for high-sticking to Derick Brassard – before Mark Stone beat Lundqvist high to the blocker side at 14:44.
By the time the horn sounded for the intermission, Ottawa had spent more time leading in that period (15:33) than the previous five games (13:10) combined.
Clarke MacArthur, who assisted on both goals, had listed his team’s priorities for Game 6 thusly: “We’ve got to find a way to get control of the game early or get through the first 10 minutes.”
After a series where they played from behind almost the entire time, they controlled the clincher from start to finish.
Now Ottawa is on to the conference final. Who would’ve imagined that?