Two victories later , having played the best team in the league and the 25th placed team in the league (who weren't playing like a 25th placed team), the Senators have secured a berth in the 2009-10 playoffs. What are their chances of going deep into the playoffs? Well, rather good actually.



The Senators can easily gain confidence is looking back at their past 6 victories. None of them have been a walk in the park. All of them had to be hard fought. On a few occasions, the Senators have fallen behind. Yet they have found a way of turning things around and doing the right things at the right time. Even against the Hurricanes last night, when I seriously thought that weird bounces and a skittish puck would prevent the Sens from finally putting one past Legace was unfounded.

Furthermore, the Senators have found a way with pieces of their game that have not been their forte all season. The power play has started to strike. Jason Spezza is on a scoring streak. Alex Kovalev buried the game winner against Washington. Anton Volchenkov contributed to scoring. Erik Karlsson' s game is blooming beautifully. Goaltending is not an issue.

Meanwhile, the rest of the offensive has remained as effective as it has all season. The line of Jarkko Ruutu, Chris Kelly, and Chris Neil still gives opponents headaches and is one pf the best forechecking lines in the league. Defensively, the addition of Andy Sutton has made a huge difference as it has added a physical dimension to all of the defensive lines.

In reality, the Senators team is just balanced enough to give whatever opposition they face in the playoffs some serious headaches. All that remains is a bit of tweaking, the tweaking that allows the defensive and offensive lines  to be where the puck is going to be. That magic that almost makes you feel like you have an extra player on the ice. The Senators are almost there, reading the flow of the game, and reading the opponent's plays better and better with each game.

It is a model that worked well before, as the Senators know. It is the model used so effectively by the Anaheim Ducks against the Sens in the Stanley Cup finals of 2006-07. Strangely, the Washington Capital look very similar to the 2006-07 Senators in that they are a scoring powerhouse, who have a way of finding themselves in front of the net with the puck, but not that great on defense. And they were stopped by the Senators. It was close, granted, but they were still stopped. The latest game against the Hurricanes has shown the Senators the tweaking that is missing: ensuring that whatever mistakes are made, as they will continue to be made, are not too costly.