The strange thing about Silfverberg’s insertion into the lineup last night is that MacLean puts such a premium on roster spots being earned through hard work. For example, last night, with the team down two goals in the third period, MacLean barely played Spezza. Where most coaches would go back to their $7MM man, MacLean knows that you can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. You don’t preach work ethic all season long only to say “just kidding” when the games matter most.

So it’s puzzling that MacLean would turn to Silfverberg after finally getting what he needed out of Bobby Butler, after a strong performance by Mark Stone, who’s been practicing with the team for days, and after a season’s worth of hard work by Colin Greening.

Silfverberg didn’t look too bad for a kid who got off a plane about 24 hours earlier. He looked lost at times, falling over Michalek in front of his own end and chasing the Rangers around, but he didn’t make any glaring mistakes. The question is why we were relying on someone in that position to start with? Hype is fun, but is that all it was?

Now the Senators have a huge decision to make and only one game left. There’s no room for error. Who plays?

Jakob Silfverberg: you could always bet that he was just getting his feet wet and will be much better next game. A couple of days of practices and some time to get rid of the jet lag could do a world of good. Though you’ve gotta ask yourself why Jakob gets that benefit of the doubt. Even the best players need more than a few minutes of ice time to get acclimatized. Can he be a difference maker? Is it fair to expect him to be?

Mark Stone: did not look out of place at all in game five, though he did receive oodles of power play time after that beauty assist and wasn’t the answer to all of the Senators’ offense questions. If not for Craig Anderson, that game might have turned out very differently, and the series would be over now. Still, Stone looked composed and confident. Perhaps more importantly, he put Spezza in a position where he felt like he could shoot the puck rather than go for a stroll in the country.

Bobby Butler: he’s been patchy all season long, though of all of the options here, Butler’s played with the most desperation. It looks like MacLean’s message has finally gotten through. Oh, and he also tends to shoot the puck every once in a while, which makes one Senators player doing that.

Colin Greening: Remember him? Played on the first line pretty much all season? Greening hasn’t been killer playing with Smith and Neil, though that line has been very good thanks to Neil’s decision to annoy the ever-loving crap out of everyone in the state of New York. Greening is just a good, solid player who knows when to crash the net. Could simplifying our strategy be the answer here?

Mika Zibanejad: “Oh ah Zibanejad / say oh ah Zibanejad” has a nice ring to it.

VARADA. THIS IS YOUR FATHER.

WHY DID YOU DOUBT? WHY DO YOU DOUBT THE SILFVERBERG AND THE ALFREDSSON? WHY ARE YOU SO CYNICAL ABOUT THE SENATORS’ ABILITY TO ‘BELIEVE IT’? DID YOU NOT RECEIVE YOUR TOWEL? ITS INSTRUCTIONS WERE CLEAR. DOES THE TOWEL SAY ANYTHING ABOUT CORSI OR FENWICK? NO, IT DOES NOT SAY ANYTHING ABOUT CORSI OR FENWICK.

WHY DID THE SENATORS NOT LISTEN TO THOSE SITTING AROUND YOU AND THEIR INSTRUCTIONS TO “SHOOT IT”?

ANYWAY, GAME SEVEN IS GOING TO BE INTENSE. AND NOT ONLY BECAUSE THE NHL MAY AS WELL RELEASE A LIVE FUCKING PANTHER ON THE ICE FOR ALL THE ARBITRARY BULLSHIT THE OFFICIATING IMPOSES ON THIS GAME. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU WATCHED AN NBA GAME AND SAW ONE TEAM GET 10 FREE THROW CHANCES IN A ROW, OR AN NFL GAME THAT SEES ONE TEAM GET A 40 YARD PENALTY? YOU NEVER HAVE. BECAUSE THOSE SPORTS ARE REAL THINGS. THEN AGAIN, SENATORS GET A GOAL WITH 32 SECONDS LEFT AFTER WHAT WAS CLEARLY GOALIE INTERFERENCE AND SKATE KICK. WHATEVER THE FUCK. WHO EVEN CARES AFTER THIS RANDOM CRAP.

YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE DONE YOUR DEGREE IN ENGLISH LITERATURE.

ASIDE: CHRIS NEIL WAS BOSS TONIGHT.

PUCK DADDY: “In a series that’s seen its share of inconstant, sometimes horrific officiating, who knows how Game 7 will play out.”

NO KIDDING. TOO BAD IT WILL HAVE ONLY 50% TO DO WITH ACTUAL HOCKEY.

ANYWAY: 20,000 FREE BACONATORS CAN’T BE WRONG. HOPE THE PANTHER IS ON OUR SIDE NEXT GAME. GO SENS.

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.