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OTTAWA — April Fool's Day is supposed to be about joking, not choking.
It is a terrible word, choke — the most dreaded curse in all of foul-mouthed hockey — and if it is not being used this morning in Ottawa, it is fast rising to the lips.
Trembling lips.
If the Senators continue to play like this — falling 3-0 to the Montreal Canadiens last night — and if teams such as the Washington Capitals continue to win, as they did last night, the greatest regular-season collapse in NHL history could soon belong to the 2007-08 Ottawa Senators.
Related Information
- Dallas Stars
- Montreal Canadiens
- Ottawa Senators
- Washington Capitals
- Mathieu Dandenault
- Martin Gerber
- Saku Koivu
- Mike Komisarek
- Andrei Kostitsyn
- Sergei Kostitsyn
- Alexei Kovalev
- Andrei Markov
- Chris Neil
- Chris Phillips
- Carey Price
- Jason Spezza
In November, they had the fastest start to a season in league history; by mid-February, they were still holding on to first place; and by the first week of April, it is conceivable, even if still somewhat unlikely, that they could miss the playoffs.
The Senators went into this final game of the regular season against the surprising Canadiens needing three points in the final three games to guarantee a trip to the postseason. Though they had lost their previous match to the Habs 7-5, they had beaten the Canadiens in five of the seven matches so far this season.
Significantly, Montreal was coming to town without its heart-and-soul captain, Saku Koivu, out with a broken bone in his foot, and without shot-blocking defenceman Mike Komisarek, also injured.
They did come, however, with a great deal of confidence. "If we play well enough," acting captain Alexei Kovalev insisted, "we can beat anybody."
So, too, you would think, can the Senators. Unfortunately, they have simply not played well enough, seemingly lost in their own end, uncertain in goal and wrenchingly out of sync up front.
The once dominant Senators have in recent games, as Russ Courtnall once said of his slumping Dallas Stars, "looked like 20 guys who just walked in off the street and were thrown together for a game."
The initial problem last night was not goaltending — Martin Gerber once again in net for Ottawa — but lack of focus. There was effort, but no result.
"We couldn't find a way to score a goal," a disappointed Ottawa coach Bryan Murray said.
His team took a penalty early in the first period for too many men on the ice and it was followed 11 seconds later by a cross-checking penalty to Ottawa defenceman Chris Phillips.
The Senators nearly killed off the 5-on-3 Montreal power play, but Kovalev, on a backhand from the side of the net, beat Gerber to put Montreal up 1-0.
Murray, the frustrated general manager, who fired coach John Paddock at the end of February, had hoped that the first goal, if it went to Montreal, would not have "an adverse effect."
But it did. By the end of the first period, the frustration was such that Jason Spezza, who has scored an impressive 15 points against Montreal this season, was slugging it out with another unlikely fighter, Canadiens defenceman Andrei Markov.
Such an unlikely battle was indicative of the Senators' rising level of frustration. As Mike Fisher put it at game's end, "We can't seem to get any breaks."
The Canadiens made the score 2-0 early in the second period when defenceman Mathieu Dandenault fired a wrist shot from the right faceoff circle that got past Gerber.
Gerber might have had that one, but the blame was not his alone this night, even though the root of the Senators' months-long swan has been thought to be twitchy goaltending that has worked its way up through the nerves of the rest of the team. All the same, Gerber visibly lacked the confidence and sureness of Montreal rookie Carey Price at the other end of the ice.
"To be honest," a grinning Price said at game's end, "I didn't feel good before the game."
During the game, however, he was excellent. A lightning-like pad save against Spezza late in the second period kept Ottawa from drawing the gap to a single goal heading into the third.
"Carey, Carey, Carey," chanted vast portions of the 20,326 sellout crowd, entire sections of whom were either committed Montreal fans or recent converts.
"He seems to get better when the pressure is on," a delighted Montreal coach Guy Carbonneau said of Price.
Price was tested more in the third period, but by then, Montreal was ahead 3-0 on a wrist shot by young Andrei Kostitsyn. At this point, the game was very much under control of the Canadiens, who clinched first place in the Northeast Division with the victory.
Ottawa now has two games — tomorrow in Toronto against the Leafs and Friday at home against the Boston Bruins — in which to salvage what began as a dream season and has descended into a bewildering nightmare.
"There's a lot of people doubting us right now," Spezza said. "People are saying a lot of negative stuff about us. We want to prove them wrong."
An admirable goal, but the clock is fast running out.
