Strange how events conspired to keep me away from the blog, as if Fate wanted me to  mourn for abot, this loss of the Senators in the first round of the playoffs. Not that the fall wasn't prgnosticated by just about everyone.



Except yours truly of course. I really thought they could pull it together. And strangely they did for a while there. At the beginning of Game 6, it was truly a Senators team that took to the ice. Beautiful plays compelted by a teammate without fail: Daniel Alfredsson's beautiful pass to Matt Cullen for the game opener, Chris Kelly's effort batted in by Chris Neil, Matt Cullen's payback pass to Alfie for the third. Every thing seemed to click, to work for the Sens.

Until the some ghost came a-haunting. The old "let's sit back on our lead" ghost. The old "let's see what they can do" ghost, the "let's play our defensive game" ghost, and the "let in a weak one" ghost. Every single problem that haunted the Sens seemed to come back in a microcosm in that third period and in the overtime. The writing was on the wall and I grew more and more nervous as the game went on and I saw the symptoms, until the inevitable happened. Tentative, sitting on their heels, the Sens let in a weak one.

Make no mistake, the Senators did have the tools to win this series and likely the next as well. They did not have the tools to go all the way of course. Not bad overall, considering some people slated the Senators not even making the playoffs. I rest on the fact that, for the last two times the Senators made the playoffs, they lost to the eventual Stanley Cup winner.