FIVE QUICK THOUGHTS
-There really are no words. There will be because that’s kind of the point but you know what I mean. To turn in an effort like that on the road and with your season on the line is nothing short of remarkable. From top to bottom, that was the best team effort of the entire season and there is nothing that comes particularly close. The commitment to defence and to battling for every loose puck was honestly unlike anything I’ve seen from this team. Picking out one player from a game like that is basically impossible because it really was a team effort in every sense of the term.
-Okay, we’ll name a couple guys that stood out. Everybody played great but a couple guys in particular played out of their mind. We’ll start with Linus Ullmark who has been pretty clearly getting better with each game. Game 5 was by far his best though. Even though he looked better in that Game 4 win, there will still some moments where it seemed like he might be guessing a little bit. That was certainly not the case in this one. Ullmark was locked in from the moment the puck dropped and just looked super comfortable for the full sixty minutes. Leading up to this game there was a lot of talk about Ullmark needing to “steal one” at some point and while it wasn’t quite thievery because the Senators were full marks for the win but still – Ullmark was damn good.
-Jake Sanderson is next on the list. The boxscore says he played 26:27 but it actually felt like he was out there the entire night and on every shift, he was completely dictating the pace of the game. There was a moment in the second period, when he was doing that thing he does where he arrives out of nowhere below the goal line, takes two strides and makes an effortless breakout pass when it really hit me – this guy is only 22 years old. It feels like just yesterday we were talking about how good Jake Sanderson is gonna be and he’s just…already that good. And only just scratching the surface. He is the best defenceman in this series and nobody else even comes close.
-In the early part of this series, the Ottawa penalty kill was getting a ton of attention and for all the wrong reasons. Now, it’s one of the primary reasons this series rolls on. In Game 4, they got a shorthanded goal from Shane Pinto and a big four minute kill in overtime. Last night, they shut the door for the full sixty minutes and ultimately iced the game on a shorty by Dylan Cozens. While the formation hasn’t changed, it does seem like the Senators have been a lot more aggressive since Game 1 and it’s made a huge a difference. I am fairly certain the sound I made on that third period shorthanded goal has never been made by another human. Just a massive goal at the biggest possible moment. Also…since when do Adam Gaudette and Dylan Cozens kill penalties?!
-Live to fight another day. It’s that simple. When you dig a hole this deep, there’s really only one way out of it and that’s one step at a time. In Game 4, they survived. In Game 5, they dominated. The Leafs players can say otherwise but the seed has been planted and for the next two days, it will grow. Watching the faces of those fans in Toronto last night, it’s clear. Ottawa is only half way there but in the hearts and minds of Leafs fans, it’s a full on “here we go again”. The Sens walked into Toronto, with their season on the line, and they played a flawless hockey game. This season has been so amazing because you can sort of see the Ottawa Senators growing up in real time. The progress they made in the regular season was impressive. Now you can it in the playoffs too. They’re getting better every game.
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