{"id":522679,"date":"2026-03-25T21:32:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T21:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/522679\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T21:32:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T21:32:14","slug":"they-are-smoking-teams-senators-control-their-own-destiny-in-heated-playoff-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/522679\/","title":{"rendered":"‘They are smoking teams’: Senators control their own destiny in heated playoff race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lars Eller shook his head in disbelief.<\/p>\n

An hour and a half after he scored the game-winning goal in a plucky 3-2 defeat of the Detroit Red Wings<\/a> on Tuesday, the 36-year-old centre, deep in thought, pondered what the Ottawa Senators had just pulled off.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was outstanding,\u201d Eller told the media in Detroit. \u201cOutstanding effort, character, willingness \u2026 I think we have just such strong character on this team. You know, when a lot of things are going against us, we\u2019re losing guys, important players in our lineup, and we just don\u2019t make excuses. We find a way to dig a little bit deeper, lift each other up.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his first season with the Sens, Eller has seen this group of players come together like few teams could.<\/p>\n

They kept the faith when historically bad goaltending was tanking their season. They stood up for Linus Ullmark<\/a> when \u201coutside forces\u201d attempted to \u201cdisrupt\u201d the hockey club.<\/p>\n

And, down five defencemen on Tuesday \u2014 including two $8-million blue-liners in Jake Sanderson and Thomas Chabot \u2014 the Senators put it all on the line against the Red Wings.<\/p>\n

The night previous, in a similar position after Chabot and Lassi Thomson left a tilt with the New York Rangers<\/a> early with respective injuries, Ottawa held on to win 2-1 at Madison Square Garden, allowing just 10 shots.<\/p>\n

Analyst praises the Senators<\/p>\n

That performance prompted former NHL goaltender Steve Valiquette, now an analyst for MSG Networks, to call the Senators<\/a> \u201cone of the best teams that we\u2019ve seen in a really long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOttawa is dominating the NHL right now like I haven\u2019t seen before,\u201d Valiquette, wearing a Toronto Maple Leafs hat, told Sportsnet\u2019s Real Kyper and Bourne. \u201cI was pulling these numbers before the game last night: They are on a stretch now of 13 games where they have only lost the high-danger battle in one of them. They are smoking teams.\u201d<\/p>\n

Are a couple of those statements from Valiquette slightly hyperbolic?<\/p>\n

Maybe.<\/p>\n

But he\u2019s actually not far off.<\/p>\n

Since Jan. 25, the Senators (15-3-2) are tied with the Buffalo Sabres for the best record in the NHL. In that time frame, they have the best goal differential in the league (+29) and have allowed by far the fewest shots per game (21.3).<\/p>\n

What is behind the Sens\u2019 strong form?<\/p>\n

What makes this stretch of dominance so convincing \u2014 and feel repeatable \u2014 is that the team\u2019s success is built off of structure and buy-in, not purely individual achievements.<\/p>\n

Tim Stutzle and Brady Tkachuk have been point-per-game players during this run, but the offence is coming from nearly everyone in the forward corps, as seven forwards have five or more goals in the past 20 games.<\/p>\n

Ullmark and James Reimer have held down the fort, but their combined save percentage of .899 is just three points above league average.<\/p>\n

Coach Travis Green and his staff have the Senators playing a brand of hockey that perfectly suits the roster. Outside of Stutzle, Sanderson and Chabot, there aren\u2019t many elite skaters, making it difficult to compete in track meets, games that involve a ton of rushes.<\/p>\n

Instead, Ottawa plays a chip-and-chase style, often opting to dump the puck into the offensive zone and relying on its dogged forecheck. With pickpockets and grinders galore on the roster, the more 50-50 battles the better.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a methodology nearly every team is forced to move towards once the postseason begins and time and space becomes scarce.<\/p>\n

Could it carry over to the playoffs?<\/p>\n

If the Sens do get in, there\u2019s no need to adapt. Rinse and repeat. Play the exact same way you have for months.<\/p>\n

The Senators woke up Wednesday in a playoff spot for the first time since Dec. 3, 2025.<\/p>\n

With 11 games remaining, they genuinely are in a good spot.<\/p>\n

Ottawa controls its own destiny \u2014 winning out guarantees a postseason berth \u2014 and has the tiebreaker (regulation wins) over pretty much any other team seriously vying for the two wild cards in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

And while the road ahead is daunting \u2014 the Senators have the fourth-hardest remaining schedule<\/a> base on opponent points percentage \u2014 seven of the final 11 regular season games will be played at the Canadian Tire Centre, where last change is a cheat code when you have the NHL\u2019s best shutdown line in Shane Pinto, Michael Amadio and Nick Cousins.<\/p>\n

Ottawa\u2019s most likely first-round match-ups are the Sabres, Carolina Hurricanes and Tampa Bay Lightning.<\/p>\n

Each of those teams will begin the post-season with home-ice advantage.<\/p>\n

But by mid April the nation\u2019s capital is gearing up for its second straight playoff run, avoiding the Senators might be the greatest advantage of all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lars Eller shook his head in disbelief. An hour and a half after he scored the game-winning goal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5104],"tags":[536,229,826,29,93,7010,5,1338,6874,4810,4159,539,8529,35,4,53,72,25,5157,168,73,1795,41312,92,832,681,31,824],"class_list":{"0":"post-522679","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ottawa-senators","8":"tag-brady-tkachuk","9":"tag-buffalo-sabres","10":"tag-canadian-tire-centre","11":"tag-carolina-hurricanes","12":"tag-detroit-red-wings","13":"tag-fabian-zetterlund","14":"tag-hockey","15":"tag-jake-sanderson","16":"tag-james-reimer","17":"tag-lars-eller","18":"tag-lassi-thomson","19":"tag-linus-ullmark","20":"tag-michael-amadio","21":"tag-new-york-rangers","22":"tag-nhl","23":"tag-nick-cousins","24":"tag-ottawa","25":"tag-ottawa-senators","26":"tag-ottawasenators","27":"tag-san-jose-sharks","28":"tag-senators","29":"tag-shane-pinto","30":"tag-steve-valiquette","31":"tag-tampa-bay-lightning","32":"tag-thomas-chabot","33":"tag-tim-stutzle","34":"tag-toronto-maple-leafs","35":"tag-travis-green"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}