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OTTAWA — Insanity has returned to Ottawa — and it has nothing to do with Parliament coming back after the Easter break.
Nor is this an April Fool's joke.
At least not yet.
But there on sports talk radio was a woman phoning in to say she had it on the most dependable source that a certain player, Jason Spezza, was behind all the known and rumoured turmoil that may or may not afflict the dressing room of the 2007-08 Ottawa Senators. Pressed to identify her source, she proudly announced it come from friends who had heard it on some hockey broadcast coming out of somewhere in the United States.
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- Boston Bruins
- Buffalo Sabres
- Carolina Hurricanes
- Montreal Canadiens
- New York Rangers
- Ottawa Senators
- Philadelphia Flyers
- Pittsburgh Penguins
- Washington Capitals
- Ray Emery
- Martin Gerber
- Patrick Lalime
- Jason Spezza
Bare moments later, there was Spezza standing, as he does every day, in front of his locker to answer virtually the same questions over and over and over again. Only this time there was a twist. Instead of being asked, "What's gone wrong?" he was asked his opinion on the current muttering in the capital city that the Senators' end-of-season woes are all because of a "lack of effort."
"That's bullshit," Spezza answered in a refreshing break from the usual hockey clichés about game plans and keeping it simple.
"That's bullshit — it's not lack of effort at all."
But it is … something.
If the definition of "consistency" were finishing a season as it was started — with the Senators threatening to make NHL history — then this should be a straightforward story of an excellent team remaining excellent.
But it is not.
The Senators did indeed make NHL history back in the fall when they got off to the best start in history, 15-2. It was such an impressive display that TSN arrived to ask fans and players whether they thought the 2007-08 Senators ought to be compared to the 1976-77 Montreal Canadiens, who came close to perfection when they lost only eight games all season and then went on to win the Stanley Cup.
The Senators were at that point considered the best bet in the East for this year's Stanley Cup. They had, after all, been to the finals only the spring before.
But now it is spring again — and the 2007-08 Senators could conceivably miss the playoffs.
While this seems unlikely, it is still a possibility with only three games remaining, beginning tonight at home against the Canadiens.
Heading into last night's light NHL schedule, Ottawa had 92 points, good enough for fifth place in the Eastern Conference, but had three teams — the New York Rangers, Philadelphia Flyers and Boston Bruins — all a single point behind, the Carolina Hurricanes two points behind (but enjoying a divisional bye that currently has them in third place), the Washington Capitals four points off and the Buffalo Sabres six points away.
That's six points separating a half-dozen teams holding down positions Nos. 5 through 10 — with Nos. 9 and 10 not making the playoffs. All teams had three games to play, except for the Rangers, who had four heading into last evening's match against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
In other words, nervous number-crunching time.
If — and this is an almost unimaginable if — the Senators' free fall were to continue to the point of their missing the playoffs, it would stand as one of the greatest collapses in sports history. People would speak of this bizarre season in the same way they remember the 1964 Philadelphia Phillies blowing a 6 1/2-game lead with 12 games to go in a baseball pennant race, or Greg Norman squandering a six-stroke lead going into the final round of the 1996 Masters.
With a few lucky bounces or even a couple of overtime losses, such ignominy will almost certainly be spared, but it is still astonishing that these Senators were in first place well into February. Then came a quick fall from grace, the firing of head coach John Paddock, a 3-0 victory over the Canadiens on March 13 that had people saying, "They're back" and then more of the same stumbling until they have reached this most dangerous moment in their wild season.
The story has largely been goaltending. Neither Ray Emery, last year's hero, nor Martin Gerber could nail down the No.1 spot, and Emery eventually so turned off teammates and the organization that Gerber, who was fabulous in the fall, was handed the position by default once general manager Bryan Murray took over the coaching.
The team now plays as it did a few seasons back with the unpredictable Patrick Lalime in net, the fear of bad goals acting as an energy drain that works up through defence and into the forwards and eventually produces a team with the yips and without focus.
"We have to find a way out," Murray said yesterday at a strenuous practice.
As for the strange, almost bizarre twists in a season that has turned the team from potentially the best team in history to potentially the most puzzling, "None of that matters," Murray said.
"Last year doesn't matter. What matters is the three games this week."
"If we win our games," Spezza added, "we're in good shape.
"If we don't, we're not."
It's as simple as that.
