I won’t recount Silfverberg’s many enticing qualifications. Let’s just say that he looks like a hell of a prospect, far better than that “top nine forward” designation most prospect tracking websites have carved out for him. When it comes to this team needing some offensive punch against the Rangers, Silfverberg is as likely a candidate as Mark Stone, Mike Hoffman, or anyone else to contribute. Add to it that Silfverberg has been playing playoff hockey for weeks already, and I admit it: he could make an immediate impact. And it would be a great next chapter to his storybook year.

But here’s the thing: I don’t want to break Jakob Silfverberg’s brain.

Winning a playoff series would be pretty cool, but there are much bigger goals for a franchise, and helping their prospects reach their maximum potential is right up there. Silfverberg has the potential to be a top six forward for this team for years to come, and his development should take precedent over the slim potential that he will enter a pivotal playoff game in a pressure-cooker environment and make a difference.

Silfverberg isn’t here to win us one Game Seven. He’s here to help us win many Game Sevens.

My greatest fear isn’t that Silfverberg might not be as effective as, say, Jesse “I-won’t-lose-you-a-game-but-I-won’t-win-you-one-either” Winchester on the first line. My fear is that a mistake hurts the kid’s confidence and, very likely, turns this city’s acerbic and sort of shitty media against him. Imagine if a defensive gaffe leads to the series-losing goal, or he steps out onto the ice and Mike Rupp or Brian Boyle paste him into the boards. What then?

This is a player, after all, who said no to the NHL to spend another year in the SEL. He shouldn’t play unless he feels ready. And without a training camp, some exhibition games, and a chance to test himself against an NHL defence—not only the Rangers incredibly stingy defence, but any NHL defence—how can he know?

In any case, the playoffs are enough to make veterans look star-crossed. Putting all of our eggs in the Silfverberg basket isn’t only a bit unrealistic, it’s also sort of unfair.

Sung to the tune of Nickleback's "Photograph" - "Look at this Spezza hat / It's been signed by Antoine Vermette / I admit that doesn't make much sense / but then again I gotta pay the rent."

To read the Ottawa papers, the Senators are tied through four games against the Rangers because a few pluggers have stepped up in the the absence of Daniel Alfredsson and the relative invisibility of Milan Michalek and Jason Spezza. It’s been the role players providing clutch scoring. To the naked eye there’s been an almost night-and-day change in the play of Jason Spezza.

I’m not breaking any news when I say that Spezza had a great regular season. So great, in fact, that the consensus among Senators blogs seems both that he is only second to the emergence of Erik Karlsson as the reason for the team’s bounce-back year, and that he’s the team’s captain-in-waiting.

Spezza stayed healthy, missing only two games all season long (only the second time he’s played at least 80 games in his career); he finished fourth in league scoring, putting up more than a point per game; he bettered his 82 game campaign by 11 points, and went from a -14 to a +11 when comparing the two seasons.

But what made Spezza so effective during the regular season was his ability to drive puck possession. The same creativity that is now causing some of us to tear our hair out was, when employed with confidence, a central driver to the team’s offensive zone dominance. Spezza’s relative CORSI during the regular season was a +6.0, which is the best among centers on the team (not including Mike Hoffman’s one NHL game), and third best on the team behind Daniel Alfredsson and Erik Karlsson among players with more than 15 games played. (Interesting side note: in his 15 games, Rob Klinkhammer scored a better relative CORSI than Spezza. Food for thought?) Spezza is key to a Senators team that finished fourth best in the league in offensive production.

In the playoffs, through an admittedly small sample size of four games, you would expect to see a reversal of these figures. His performance has been marked by his occasional, if optically horrible, tendency to use the no-look pass to teammates who can’t quite keep up or have no idea that it’s coming. His incessant giveaways would seem to diminish the team’s ability to attempt shots on net. But the figures imply otherwise.

His 13.5 relative CORSI is the best on the team for centers, almost double that of Zach Smith. Kyle Turris, game four OT hero and new King of Clutch, is quite a bit worse, almost even at a -1.0. Spezza’s rating is good for third on the team, behind Chris Neil and Chris Phillips, among players who have played in all four playoff games.

It’s also worth noting that Spezza’s faceoff percentages have been great, occasionally touching on the unreal. In game four, he won over 61% of his draws, and in the game three loss he won an incredible 86%. (That was the only game, I should note, in which Spezza played less than 20 minutes.)

Spezza is probably still going to drive you crazy. Each terrible pass seems to wipe from memory all of the little things he’s doing right. But even when he’s overthinking and making open-ice passes to nobody in particular, he’s the underlying engine on this team’s puck possession and shots towards the net. Looking at the team’s mostly even CORSI, you could maybe make the argument that MacLean should depend on a few of his pluggers to put less pressure on his top center. But then the team’s even CORSI might be precisely because MacLean isn’t playing his pluggers quite so much.

If Spezza settles down a bit and starts making smarter plays—starting, I would suggest, by using that nasty shot of his more—he could turn into a force in this series. Having just played in what was his 50^th playoff game, you’ve got to think that if he isn’t settled now, he’ll never be. But even if we haven’t seen Spezza’s best yet, he’s been fundamental to the team’s success so far.

Oh, by the way: the only player with consistently better CORSI? Daniel Alfredsson. Get well soon, captain.

With so many important games, and most of these games decided by one goal, needless to say we’re in no condition to write anything coherent after most game nights. We’re in a constant state of anxiety, with drinking of both a celebratory and medically necessary nature occurring throughout. So let’s open this up to you, our readers. Help us pick up our own slack.

My question: whose stock is rising the fastest in these playoffs? Whose is falling the fastest?

For example, I was on the fence about bringing Matt Carkner back this offseason. But after his three playoff games I’m ready to give him a letter on his jersey. My skepticism about Kyle Turris has been well documented, but a sick snipe in overtime has a way of chipping away at one’s convictions. Meanwhile, the new baby must be keeping Spezza up at night, because he’s looked awful for long stretches, and Michalek just scored his first goal of the playoffs last night.

WHAT SAY YOU?

P.S. love this clip. You did the team proud last night, Sens fans.

The day began with your typical playoff excitement: you’ve got tickets, and you need only suffer through the interminable work day before you get there. The day ended with a Baconator and poutine. These two points headed towards each other with fatal inevitability, like two rogue planets on a collision course. I feel terrible this morning.

1)      That was a great game, even if we lost.

If Ottawa plays like that for the rest of the series, they’re going to win more games than they lose. Outshooting, playing physical without necessarily getting wacky, and driving puck possession all night long. Keep it up, bozos.

2)      What the fuck is wrong with Jason Spezza?

The overwhelming majority of offense from the Senators this season has come from Jason Spezza, Milan Michalek, Erik Karlsson, and Daniel Alfredsson. With Alfie out of the game, there’s just no way this team can win without Michalek, and to a much greater degree Spezza. Let’s give credit to the Rangers D, but Spetsnatz is trying way too hard out there. The version of Spezza that hucks passes blindly across ice has reared its ugly head. He’s one step ahead of his own brain at all times. He doled out giveaways like he was campaigning. He also took three minor penalties. I hope he comes back to earth in time for this series.

3)      Eating a Baconator is like eating a bag of salt.

I am humming with excess electrolytes.

4)      Bobby Butler did not look out of place out there.

Butlah had some beautiful chances. He also shoots the puck, unlike every single other Ottawa Senator.

5)      Why is Jesse Winchester on the first line?

I mean, he looks good. Defensively responsible, good along the boards. He’s not losing you any games. But I don’t know that he’s an improvement over Colin Greening, who is now playing with Zack Smith and Chris Neil. Spezza looks like he’s got a head cold or something, but he’s got enough natural talent to shine through occasionally. Michalek had a solid game, even if it couldn’t translate. But when you’ve got Winchester in the mix—he of 11 career goals in 233 games—the play would often grind to a halt. Not sure if Game Three of the playoffs is where you want to start experimenting with your lines.

6)      It’s confusing when Captial Tickets calls Game Three of the series Home Game One, and Game Six of the series Home Game Three

Thank god for scalpers.

You may see a few of these in the stands tonight if those last 300 tickets don't get sold.

I don’t have much information in this post, I just wanted to take a moment to acknowledge that it’s the first playoff game in Ottawa since April 24th, 2010. And that Torontonians don’t know what this feels like. 

They were handing out free t-shirts downtown. I tried to get one but it’s Ottawa, so a lawyer making $117,000 a year snatched it out of my hands before asking the guy if he could have three more for his kids. I tried to push him in front of an OC Transpo bus, but it’s OC Transpo, so it was late and the guy just got up and walked away. Nearby, a man with an oversized novelty puck hat stared into the middle distance while waiting in line to get coffee, and I thought, “Man, I fucking love the playoffs.”

Needless to say, excitement is in the air. Roughly 57% of that excitement is generated from the notion that someone might actually get killed tonight, especially if the Rangers are losing the game and want to, ahem (puts on Don Cherry voice), SEND A MESSAGE GOOD BEAUTIFUL BOY THAT’S THE WAY.

Anyway, Sens will look to take advantage of the fact that the ice at Scotiabank Place isn’t butter, that the linchpin of the Rangers attack Carl Hagelin is out serving his three game suspension, and that Jason Spezza hasn’t really played yet and so should be well rested.

The WTYKYs crew will be in attendance. If you can guess which ones we are you’ll win the opportunity to buy us a beer.

GO SENS.

Last night’s game represented something surreal for Senators fans, or at least for this one. For years Ottawa was the skilled team who seemed to crumple in the playoffs against grinders, the team who couldn’t create that sense of family that you sensed other teams built around. In a sense, Ottawa has rarely seemed like a team that liked each other any more than your average group of co-workers.

So to hear Chris Neil talk about how this team is a family, and how Carkner’s mugging of Boyle (in response to Boyle’s mugging of Karlsson) meant the world to the room, is a conflict for a fan like me. It’s bittersweet. It’s one of those moments that justifies all of the loud-mouthed analysts and square-headed bullies who insist that this game is best played by a bunch of good ol’ Canadian boys engaging in the pro sports equivalent of a bar fight.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy the occasional fight, though most of the time I use them as an opportunity to check the out-of-town scoreboard. But the degree to which these playoffs have turned into pure spectacle is both entertaining and thoroughly weird. Personally, I’ve spent the entire season speculating on dry rebuilding models and sustainable franchises. I assume that there are systems used to build hockey teams that are complex and nuanced, that this sport isn’t really a Good Ol’ Boys network of old school mentalities and enforcers in suits. But games like last night’s seem to imply otherwise. Maybe the best way to be competitive really is to goon it up.

During Don Cherry’s first intermission rant, he went into an incoherent string of his usual cliches. I have no idea what his point was, but at one point he just started saying “all these Swedes and Finns in their visors.” I suppose his point was that at the end of the day it was Matt Carkner, he of Winchester, ON, drafted 58th overall way back in 1999, and making close to league minimum, that supposedly made the difference. Cherry’s cache in the hockey community was enforced.

Never mind that Ottawa ended up having to kill off a five minute major, something that just as well might have resulted in the game being out of reach before the first period was half over. But that’s not the narrative. The story that sticks is that Ottawa responded, took control of the series, and are heading back to Ottawa with the split and all the momentum on their side. That Chris Neil scored the OT winner, and that Jason Spezza looks positively lost out there, only seems appropriate given the romance accorded this Ottawa team’s newfound emphasis on getting wacky.

So, yeah: strange times for Sens fans. Those of us who remember the stacked, skilled teams of yesteryear shitting the bed against vastly inferior Leafs teams look at the result of last year and can’t help but think we’ve lost some bit of the respectability we once enjoyed. We just might win more games as a result.