"Score first, and score often..."
For just about the first time in Senators playoff history, Ottawa positively crushed the Pittsburgh Penguins in game one of this first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. I don't know how many game one efforts were flat and uninspired. Tonight, the Senators came out flying, scoring and hitting.
In the dying moments of the game it seemed that a number of Pens tried to physically intimidate the good guys. It was so refreshing to see Mike Comrie come over and drop the gloves, challenging a Pittsburgh offender to a fight if he so wished. We never saw this kind of guts before. That's the kind of guts a team needs to survive a long playoff run.
As a huge fan who has suffered from major bouts of playoff disappointment year after year, I am relieved to see that - if nothing else - the team can show the grit and determination it has... and that it can actually make good use of it as well.
I'm sure the call in shows on the Team 1200 will have caller after caller ready to plan the Stanley Cup parade route. We're a fickle bunch - if we ever lose a game in this post season the naysayers will come out of the woodwork and declare us dead and will demand that players be traded and that coaching staff and management be fired. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.
Hopefully coach Murray will sit his team down and remind them that four wins are needed to win a series. The Penguins are inexperienced as far as playoffs are concerned and it showed that they were very nervous when the game started. They settled in and things looked better from Pittsburgh's perspective... until the Sens found a new gear in the third. They won't cough up quick and early goals every game - so Ottawa has to bear down and ready itself for a fight.
They could win the series in four... or six - nothing can be taken for granted. Perhaps a new playoff leaf is being turned - let's make sure of it before we get too far of ourselves - and that goes for "us fans" and "them players"!!
Keep it up - it's a GRRREAT start!
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