OTTAWA \u2014 Just like last year, the Ottawa Senators made sure to hug goaltender Linus Ullmark after the final horn sounded. And just like last year, the Senators remained near center ice to salute their home fans after their season ended in the Stanley Cup playoffs.<\/p>\n
Hope lingered amid the emotions of a six-game series loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs last spring, when many members of the Senators\u2019 young core were introduced to their first-ever postseason. With this year\u2019s elimination, which came at the hands of the Eastern Conference-leading Carolina Hurricanes in a four-game sweep that ended with Saturday\u2019s Game 4 loss at Canadian Tire Centre<\/a>, that hope feels more mixed with pressure.<\/p>\n Because as long as the Senators remain a playoff team, expectations for results will only continue to grow. And any missed opportunity to further their playoff experience is understandably \u201cheartbreaking,\u201d as Senators captain Brady Tkachuk put it.<\/p>\n \u201cYou come in, and you just want to win a Stanley Cup \u2014 everyone believed that in here,\u201d a softspoken Tkachuk said after his team\u2019s 4-2 defeat. \u201cFor it to be as tight a series and not go our way every game, it\u2019s really tough.\u201d<\/p>\n The feeling might\u2019ve been a bit different if the Senators had won a game or two in this series, especially as this team progresses towards being labelled a true contender in the Eastern Conference. Instead, said Tkachuk when asked how his emotions compared to those of last year, \u201cit\u2019s kind of the same.\u201d<\/p>\n The first-round sweep capped an eventful year that, were it a television show, would be worth a rewatch. And the Senators weren\u2019t shy to embrace the adversity they faced all season as a storyline entering the playoffs.<\/p>\n The Senators endured an up-and-down year for Tkachuk, who battled injury, won a gold medal for Team USA at the Olympics, drew criticism for celebrating at the White House<\/a>, and had to answer for controversial comments made on his podcast by his father, Keith<\/a>. Ullmark, meanwhile, struggled to find consistency in the first half of the year before stepping away for mental health reasons<\/a>, only to help lead the Senators down the stretch to the East\u2019s second wild-card spot.<\/p>\n And just as the team was getting back on track in March, injuries to its defense corps piled up. The Senators weathered that storm to make the playoffs but couldn\u2019t overcome the significant hurdle against a healthier, deeper Canes team \u2014 especially without top-pair blueliners Artem Zub, who never returned after exiting partway through Game 1, and Jake Sanderson, who was knocked out of Game 3 with a concussion.<\/p>\n \u201cPlayed 10 defensemen in the first four games of a playoff series, which I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve heard of that,\u201d coach Travis Green said.<\/p>\n But underneath all of that, during the regular season, the Senators still hung around the NHL\u2019s best in possession and shot suppression metrics, profiling as an elite defensive team. They got a lot out of their best forwards, and Sanderson, who also won gold at the Olympics, showed great progression on the back end. And the Michael Amadio-Shane Pinto duo had many moments in the regular season when they proved their worth.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve taken a lot of steps this year to really having a lot of belief that we\u2019re a lot closer than we were to hopefully competing for a Stanley Cup,\u201d Green said. \u201cThat\u2019s what we\u2019re here for. And you don\u2019t say that very often when you lose 4-0. But after last year, I felt like we\u2019d taken some steps. And then after this year, I feel like we\u2019ve taken a lot more steps.\u201d<\/p>\n