The Ottawa Senators gathered on the second floor of their hotel, hoping to celebrate.<\/p>\n
Hours earlier, on Saturday afternoon, Ottawa defeated the New York Islanders in Elmont, N.Y., moving one step closer toward clinching a playoff berth for the second straight year. Back at the Westin Jersey City Newport, many members of the team\u2019s traveling party were glued to screens showing the Detroit Red Wings-New Jersey Devils game. The stakes were simple: A New Jersey victory would punch the Senators\u2019 ticket.<\/p>\n
Several players watched on a television in a conference room, cheering at every Devils goal. Coach Travis Green and his staff tuned in from another meeting room next door, with Green later admitting to unleashing a few swear words throughout the viewing experience. Others received audible updates, via these live reactions, from a third space doubling as a makeshift athletic training room.<\/p>\n
After falling behind through two periods, New Jersey mounted a late charge to beat Detroit, 5-3. Senators players and coaches celebrated together, at once basking in their latest success and breathing a sigh of relief. Their roller coaster ride of a 2025-26 season was guaranteed to continue.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been through a lot this year,\u201d Senators forward Claude Giroux said Sunday. \u201cWe dug ourselves into a pretty big hole, and then we were able to get out of it and find a way to make the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Senators\u2019 chances of making the playoffs once looked bleak, dipping below 20 percent as they dropped into a tie for last<\/a> in the Eastern Conference in late January<\/a>. At the time, their penalty kill was languishing among the NHL\u2019s worst. Their team save percentage would\u2019ve ranked among the lowest league-wide in the last 35 years. Starting goaltender Linus Ullmark was away on undisclosed personal leave, leading the organization to release a statement denouncing online speculation<\/a> about the nature of his then-indefinite absence. And captain Brady Tkachuk hardly looked himself after a right thumb injury ahead of his first Olympic appearance.<\/p>\n Under the hood, though, Ottawa was consistently brushing shoulders with Stanley Cup contenders on expected goals and shot suppression, suggesting that a turnaround was possible. Now the team is improbably playoff-bound in consecutive seasons for the first time since 2011-12 and 2012-13, capturing the East\u2019s second wild card spot to set up a first-round date with the conference-leading Carolina Hurricanes.<\/p>\n And while many once doubted their odds, the Senators insist they never lost faith. Not even post-Olympic injuries to defencemen Jake Sanderson and Thomas Chabot led to Ottawa using 13 different blueliners by season\u2019s end \u2014 or Ullmark\u2019s struggles, or Tkachuk\u2019s fatigue \u2014 could derail their final on-ice push.<\/p>\n \u201cInside our room,\u201d assistant coach Nolan Baumgartner said, \u201cthere was no panic.\u201d<\/p>\n Looking back on their regular-season resurgence, players and coaches struggle to identify a single turning point. But the Senators experienced a significant amount of turbulence that necessitated course corrections.<\/p>\n In net, with Ullmark still away on leave and the Senators down to Leevi Meril\u00e4inen, Mads Sogaard and journeyman minor-league Hunter Shepard, the Senators found themselves in troublesome goaltending waters to start 2026. This prompted general manager Steve Staios to sign veteran James Reimer, who had just represented Canada at the Spengler Cup in Switzerland.<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t the first time that the team had pursued Reimer, checking in with him last summer before Reimer chose to remain unsigned and spend more time with his family. And once Reimer\u2019s time at the Spengler Cup ended, Staios pounced, signing him to a professional tryout agreement with the Senators\u2019 minor-league affiliate on Jan. 9. Fittingly enough, the news broke during the second intermission of the season\u2019s most lopsided loss, an 8-2 blowout at home against the Colorado Avalanche.<\/a><\/p>\n On Jan. 17, the day before Reimer\u2019s debut with the Senators, Meril\u00e4inen allowed<\/a> six goals on 19 shots in a 6-5 overtime loss to the Montreal Canadiens, after which Sanderson declared that his team\u2019s goalie needed to \u201cmake more than 10 saves to win a game.\u201d Sanderson later apologized to Meril\u00e4inen<\/a>, but the netminder was soon sent to the minors. Since joining Ottawa, his replacement has fared much better: In 14 regular-season appearances with the Senators, Reimer went 7-4-2 with a 2.42 goals-against average and an .886 save percentage, ending with 19 saves in a 3-1 win over the Maple Leafs in Wednesday\u2019s finale.<\/p>\n \u201cVery thankful that we could get a good pro like James Reimer here,\u201d Staios told The Athletic. \u201cI think his impact not only increased for us on the ice, in practice. But, off the ice, he has been really, really valuable to the group.\u201d<\/p>\n Even with Reimer arriving to address their Achilles\u2019 heel, the Senators still had other issues to sort through \u2014 namely, their penalty kill. Deploying a hybrid box structure that morphed in shape depending on the opposing power play<\/a>, Ottawa proved too easy to pierce, especially with sub-standard goaltending. In Reimer\u2019s third game, on Jan. 22, the team blew a 3-0 lead by allowing five unanswered goals in a 5-3 loss to the Nashville Predators, including two against Nashville\u2019s power play.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were trying, and it just wasn\u2019t working out at the time,\u201d Baumgartner said.<\/p>\n Two days later, on the morning of a game against the Hurricanes, a change was announced: Baumgartner, a longtime assistant of Green\u2019s dating back to their days in Vancouver, would make way for Mike Yeo in overseeing the penalty kill. No structural changes were made, but the improvement was drastic. When Yeo took over on Jan. 24, the Senators had the NHL\u2019s second-worst penalty kill unit at around 72 percent. Under Yeo, entering Wednesday, the Senators were operating at nearly 83 percent \u2014 the sixth-best rate in the league in that span.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve tried to put an emphasis on going out sort of with a mindset of not reacting to what they do, and be a little bit more assertive and dictate things,\u201d Yeo said in March. \u201cI think that\u2019s what we\u2019ve seen from our group. We\u2019re trying to develop a bit of an attitude where, you know, and a bit of a swagger.\u201d<\/p>\n While dark clouds followed the Senators, they managed to enjoy lighter moments. Ullmark travelled with the group<\/a> during the team\u2019s three-game road trip through Detroit, Columbus and Nashville, cheering up teammates who were just happy to have him around even if he wasn\u2019t playing.<\/p>\n Around that time, the Senators\u2019 coaching staff emphasized playing with desperation during a video meeting \u2014 using forward Claude Giroux as an example in a clip. In response, Giroux reiterated the need to play desperately to his teammates.<\/p>\n \u201cWe started making fun of him for saying that,\u201d forward Shane Pinto said, wearing a shirt featuring Giroux\u2019s face with the nickname \u201cMr. Desperate\u201d below. The shirts were made upon their return from that road trip.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s just them messing around with me,\u201d Giroux said.<\/p>\n But the message was serious: If the Senators were to fix their season, they had to want it more than their opponent every night.<\/p>\n If any single turning point does exist, it is probably a speech that Green made on Jan. 25, following a resounding 7-1 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights. In the Senators\u2019 dressing room, the coach told his team to block out the \u201cwhite noise\u201d surrounding the group.<\/p>\n \u201cHe kind of nipped it in the bud right away,\u201d Sanderson said. \u201cLet the white noise be out there. Don\u2019t let it affect this locker room.\u201d<\/p>\n The Golden Knights\u2019 victory was among five wins in their final six games before the Olympic break. Ottawa\u2019s momentum continued upon its return with four wins in its first six games back. Tkachuk even removed the tape from his right thumb<\/a> once he returned to the Senators and collected points in his first seven games. And on March 19, he fought Anders Lee to start a game against the Islanders. Tkachuk ended this season with 22 points in 23 games.<\/p>\n \u201cHe manages the game the right way, manages his emotions,\u201d Staios said. \u201cI think it\u2019s growth.\u201d<\/p>\n Tkachuk wasn\u2019t alone in producing at the top of the lineup. Tim St\u00fctzle amassed separate points streaks of 13 and 14 games, continuing the latter through the Olympic break after representing Germany in Milan. Drake Batherson worked toward, and eventually achieved, his first 30-goal season. Dylan Cozens, acquired at the trade deadline from Buffalo last year, reached 20 goals for the first time since the 2022-23 season.<\/p>\n The Senators were even rewarded off the ice, receiving their 2026 first-round pick back<\/a> after lobbying the NHL to amend their punishment for the Evgenii Dadonov trade gone wrong.<\/p>\n Despite injuries sidelining Chabot, Sanderson, Nick Jensen and other members of their back end, the Senators continued to surge. On March 23, they beat the New York Rangers on the road with only four defenders. The next night, in Detroit, they called up rookies Carter Yakemchuk and Jorian Donovan and won again<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019re a little bit cursed right now on the back end,\u201d Sanderson said earlier this month. \u201cBut guys have been playing awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n The Senators dealt with more \u201cwhite noise\u201d when Ullmark was unavailable against the Tampa Bay Lightning due to mental health reasons<\/a>. His first game back, on March 31 against the Florida Panthers, saw him allow five goals on 16 shots before being pulled. Ensuing podcast comments from Tkachuk\u2019s father, Keith, went viral after fans and pundits interpreted them as critical of the Swedish netminder, which Brady strongly refuted<\/a>. In Ullmark\u2019s six games after that Panthers loss, he went 5-1-0 with a .926 save percentage and a 1.83 goals-against average.<\/p>\n Entering Wednesday, according to Natural Stat Trick, the Sens ranked in the NHL\u2019s top five in expected goals percentage, high-danger chance percentage and shot attempt rate. And others around the league have taken notice of their success.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a team that plays playoff hockey,\u201d Hurricanes forward Taylor Hall said after the Canes lost to Ottawa earlier this month. \u201cIt\u2019s a good test for what we\u2019re going to see. They have that desperation, and we\u2019re gonna have to match that in a couple of weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n An exhaustive list of ups and downs has followed the Senators all season. There will likely be more adventures when the Senators begin their playoff quest in North Carolina this weekend. But they can\u2019t say they haven\u2019t been battle-tested with all the drama, injuries and other forms of adversity that have come their way this season.<\/p>\n As Ullmark said, \u201cWe\u2019re used to it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ottawa Senators gathered on the second floor of their hotel, hoping to celebrate. 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