{"id":554900,"date":"2026-04-18T00:21:44","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T00:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/554900\/"},"modified":"2026-04-18T00:21:44","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T00:21:44","slug":"ottawa-senators-turning-up-playoff-heat-on-carolina-hurricanes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/554900\/","title":{"rendered":"Ottawa Senators turning up playoff heat on Carolina Hurricanes"},"content":{"rendered":"

What, me worry? The Ottawa Senators<\/a> aren\u2019t feeling any pressure at all as they prepare to open the National Hockey League playoffs.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t take long for the Senators to turn up the heat on the Carolina Hurricanes, the top-ranked team in the Eastern Conference during the regular season as they prepared for Game 1 of the first-round series on Saturday at 3 p.m.<\/p>\n

The eighth-ranked Senators will face the Hurricanes in the best-of-seven series opener at the Lenovo Center in Raleigh, N.C., and Ottawa alternate captain Thomas Chabot maintained that all the pressure was on Carolina.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to take a lot,\u201d Chabot said of the challenge. \u201cWe\u2019re the team in eighth, we know we\u2019re in the underdog position, and we know where we\u2019re at. I have a lot of belief in our group.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a hard-fought series; it\u2019s going to be tight every night. That\u2019s a hard building to play in; it brings a lot of energy, even in the season.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Senators have never faced the Hurricanes in the Stanley Cup<\/a> playoffs, and they\u2019ve won only about 30 per cent of their regular-season games in Raleigh, where Ottawa has a 16-38-5 record overall.<\/p>\n

Does Chabot feel like the pressure is on Carolina?<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say so,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019ve been to the Eastern Conference final the last couple of years, they\u2019ve made runs every year, and this is only the second time we\u2019ve made the playoffs (with this group).<\/p>\n

\u201cI know the spot that we\u2019re in, but every single guy is ready to face that challenge, and we can\u2019t wait to get it going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chabot is mostly correct about Carolina\u2019s playoff success. The Hurricanes have advanced to the East final in two of the past three postseasons. They dropped a 4-1 decision to the Panthers last spring and were also swept by Florida in 2023.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Defenceman Jake Sanderson during practice in Ottawa on Friday.<\/p>\n

A wealth of experience<\/p>\n

But this is the Hurricanes\u2019 eighth straight trip to the playoffs. They haven\u2019t been eliminated in the first round since 2019. The Senators were one of the NHL\u2019s best teams in the last six weeks, but hockey in the postseason is a different animal, and this will be a difficult test.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the hardest thing to win in sports, the Stanley Cup, so for me it\u2019s just embracing that hard road,\u201d Senators captain Brady Tkachuk said. \u201cIt takes a lot of ups, a lot of downs, and a lot of adversity.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s what makes it more special. It\u2019s going to be a grind. There\u2019s not going to be many chances on both sides. It\u2019ll be a series that will be a hard-fought battle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carolina head coach Rod Brind\u2019Amour voice nothing but respect for the Senators.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a really exceptional team,\u201d Brind\u2019Amour said. \u201cYou look at their record, and you say, \u2018Oh, they\u2019re the eighth seed.\u2019 No, you have to dig in a little further. When their goaltending came around, all of a sudden they didn\u2019t lose.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve got it all covered off. You look at trying to find a weakness, and there isn\u2019t any. We have two really similar teams, and we play a really similar way, so every game is going to be a war.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even Brind\u2019Amour is trying to temper expectations in Carolina.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat might be the toughest matchup you could have asked for,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ottawa head coach Travis Green said the Senators should enjoy the challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought today\u2019s practice was fast, and there was a lot of purpose. The players were dialled in,\u201d Green said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou probably see that around the league. Everyone knows that this is why you play the game. You grow up as a kid waiting to play playoff hockey. No team is different. They\u2019re all excited to play right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Senators captain Brady Tkachuk shoots the puck during practice in Ottawa on Friday.<\/p>\n

Kleven closing in on a return<\/p>\n

Defenceman Tyler Kleven resumed skating with his teammates on Friday while wearing a full visor to protect a surgically repaired jaw that was broken when he was struck in the face by a puck in an April 2 game against the Buffalo Sabres.<\/p>\n

Green wasn\u2019t about to tip his hand on when Kleven, the rugged second-pairing blueliner, might return to the lineup.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s closer to playing, he\u2019s out with the group,\u201d said Green, who didn\u2019t rule out the chance that Kleven might even return on Saturday.<\/p>\n

But that would appear unlikely. Kleven was wearing a yellow non-contact jersey on Friday and grabbed at his face after he was struck by an errant stick during a drill. He spent some time with Senators equipment assistant Bram Karp, getting an adjustment to the visor.<\/p>\n

Kleven skated in the fourth defence pairing with Lassi Thomson on Friday, while Dennis Gilbert took turns with Nikolas Matinpalo, but Kleven\u2019s presence left the impression that he was expected to play in this series.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019d be huge. He\u2019s been such a big piece to this team all year; he\u2019s played so well,\u201d Chabot said. \u201cHis presence, how physical he is, how strong he is, there aren\u2019t many guys like him out there. So, if we could get him, hopefully either next game or in the next couple games, it\u2019ll be a big add for us for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

bgarrioch@postmedia.com<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Accompanied by former Senators player Chris Neil, left, and team president Cyril Leeder, right, Mayor Mark Sutcliffe takes a Sens Mile street sign to a ceremony at City Hall on Friday. Sens Mile signs will be installed along Elgin Street for the length of the Senators\u2019 run in the 2026 NHL playoffs.<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What, me worry? The Ottawa Senators aren\u2019t feeling any pressure at all as they prepare to open the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5104],"tags":[536,229,29,2217,62,5,4159,285,4,4796,72,25,5157,73,2822,1796,832,3820],"class_list":{"0":"post-554900","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-carolina-hurricanes","11":"tag-eastern-conference","12":"tag-florida","13":"tag-hockey","14":"tag-lassi-thomson","15":"tag-national-hockey-league","16":"tag-nhl","17":"tag-nikolas-matinpalo","18":"tag-ottawa","19":"tag-ottawa-senators","20":"tag-ottawasenators","21":"tag-senators","22":"tag-the-hurricanes","23":"tag-the-senators","24":"tag-thomas-chabot","25":"tag-tyler-kleven"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116422855821689728","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554900","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=554900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}