TORONTO — A Battle of Ontario showdown on a Saturday on Hockey Night in Canada was always going to be a big game.
But at the beginning of the season, neither the Ottawa Senators nor the Toronto Maple Leafs would have expected the outcome of a game on the last night in February would be shaping their deadline plans as buyers or sellers.
Just 10 months ago, the Maple Leafs and Senators were duelling in a hotly contested playoff series — now, they’re simply battling to get out of the Atlantic Division’s basement.
This time, the Senators emphatically dimmed Toronto’s playoff hopes in a 5-2 victory, prompting the Scotiabank Arena crowd to serenade the home side with some boos.
Morgan Rielly scored 2:52 into the game, but the Maple Leafs did not earn another shot for the rest of the period. In the meantime, Ottawa fired 16 straight shots on net to finish the first frame.
“Oh, it’s lovely. It’s just dandy. Means that we’re playing really good hockey in front of me,” goalie Linus Ullmark said of his low workload.
Ottawa dominated and it wasn’t close, despite the two teams being separated by just three points in the standings. The Senators looked like they believed they could make the playoffs and desperately wanted to; the Leafs looked like they had given up.
“Just fairly embarrassing, to be honest with you,” Leafs captain Auston Matthews said. “We have to have more pride in our play.”
The gulf between the teams Saturday night was the size of Lake Ontario.
Rielly called the Maple Leafs’ game “confusing” and “unacceptable,” while Jake McCabe said they “s— the bed.”
Music to Senators fans’ ears.
Ottawa’s win drags it within five points of a playoff spot. Its post-season odds now sit at 45 per cent, according to Moneypuck.com.
Juxtapose that with Toronto. The Leafs’ playoff hopes are now on life support, and they are poised to send a mass of bodies out of their unit ahead of Friday’s 3 p.m. ET trade deadline. It’s a seller’s market in a city where that talk has typically been reserved for housing, not the Maple Leafs.
Everyone from Bobby McMann to Scott Laughton to Oliver Ekman-Larsson seem potentially headed for the exits from Ontario’s capital.
Meanwhile, in Canada’s capital, the deadline path looks more complicated. The Senators have plenty of expiring contracts, including Claude Giroux, Nick Jensen, David Perron, Nick Cousins and Lars Eller. Ottawa’s win gives it some hope that the team won’t waste another year of Brady Tkachuk in a Senators uniform.
The Senators still need an upgrade on the right side of their defensive top four in tandem with an Ullmark renaissance tour.
If Ottawa had Toronto’s 17th-ranked .892 team save percentage, it’d be in a playoff spot rather than five points out.
Ullmark struggled on Toronto’s second goal Saturday with poor rebound control, but he got five goals in support.
Yet, in something bigger than his on-ice play, Ullmark returned to Toronto for the first time since he suffered from panic episodes on Dec. 27 that led him to get pulled and then promptly take a leave of absence to tend to his mental health.
“It’s nice not getting pulled. That’s nice,” Ullmark joked. “And I mean, it’s just one game out of I don’t know how many times I’ve been here in Toronto, and you can’t really focus too much on just one night.”
Nevertheless, even with the Senators’ victory, there is still a lack of clarity in the bigger picture for the rivals. Both general managers, Brad Treliving and Steve Staios, are in a jam. Each of them has an American captain with a contract finishing in 2028 and neither looks much like a Stanley Cup contender at the moment.
Each GM’s track record has been mixed and their roadmap to convincing their captains to stay in a winning environment is hard.
In Toronto, Mitch Marner’s loss is felt deep, while his replacements from Dakota Joshua to Nicolas Roy to Matias Maccelli and even Easton Cowan have been underwhelming.
Staios let Jakob Chychrun leave for an older, solid pro in Nick Jensen. In retrospect, the Senators did not recoup enough for the uber-talented Chychrun, who’s scored 42 goals in less than two seasons in Washington. Staios also traded a prime asset in a second-round pick for Fabian Zetterlund, while inking the Swede to a $12.83 million dollar contract over three years. Zetterlund is currently playing on Ottawa’s fourth line.
On the other hand, Staios’ acquisitions of David Perron, Michael Amadio and Jordan Spence have been fine. And his trade of Josh Norris for Dylan Cozens is looking like a success. Cozens scored twice on Saturday, notching his second career 20-goal campaign, and first in Ottawa in his first full season in Canada’s capital. In contrast, Norris has played just 22 games this season.
Staios’ predecessor, Pierre Dorion, left him no prospects or draft capital and no first-round pick this year due to the botched Evgenii Dadonov trade. Similarly, Treliving inherited an empty cupboard, yet his two trades for Brandon Carlo and Scott Laughton leave Toronto on the verge of giving up a top-10 pick to archrival Boston and no first-round pick next season, to boot.
Which is in worse shape: Toronto or Ottawa?
Right now you’d say Toronto, but it has a track record of winning and Ottawa doesn’t — especially with its traumatic history between the pipes.
The Senators are likely still a few wins away from hitting the buy button.
In hockey, fans want either wins or hope. For one night at least, the Senators rekindled hope, while Toronto’s golden age looked like it was on the precipice of expiring.
Drake Batherson hadn’t scored since Jan. 18. But in the mecca of hockey, he found twine twice to end a 10-game goalless drought and reach the 20-goal mark for the fourth consecutive season.
“It’s frustrating,” Batherson said. “I’ve been through a lot of stretches like that throughout my career, so it still makes me as mad as the first time going through that.”
Ullmark was asked how often he tells Batherson to shoot more often: “Every day.”
“I mean, if anyone saw his Sens skills (competition), he put on a 106 m.p.h. (shot).”
If Batherson can regain some scoring touch, it will enhance Ottawa’s ability to get on a heater.
Source link
#Senators #muddy #tradedeadline #plans #thumping #Maple #Leafs
