How the Ottawa Senators Reached Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final
Last night the Ottawa Senators’ 2017 Stanley Cup Playoff run came to an end. It was a run that was characterized as fluky, boring and bad for the game of hockey by some. However, closer inspection lends credence to the idea that this team was better than most gave it credit for, even as it finished second in the Atlantic Division. In each area of the ice, General Manager Pierre Dorion and Head Coach Guy Boucher succeeded in bringing in strong talent and putting players in positions to thrive. As the book closes on the Sens’ 2016–17 season, let’s take a look at why they were able to reach Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final.
This review will start from the back out, so we first turn our attention to goaltending. Craig Anderson finished the 2016–17 season with an all-situations Save Percentage of 92.7%, good for fourth-best among goalies who played at least 1000 minutes. He continued this stellar play during the playoffs, stopping 92.2% of shots. Anderson, 36 years old, was absent for portions of the season in order to spend time with his wife, who is battling cancer, and as a result only played in 40 games during the regular season. His consistent presence during the playoffs was a stabilizing force on the back end.
In front of him was a much-maligned defensive corps with one shining star. While players such as Cody Ceci, Dion Phaneuf and Mark Borowiecki failed to live up to expectations throughout the regular season and into the playoffs, the incredible play of Erik Karlsson kept this defense afloat. He logged an average of 28:07 minutes of ice time during the playoffs, an uptick of more than a minute from his regular season average. During this time he was sensational, with a 5v5 Corsi For percentage of 52.92% and a scoring rate of 2.02 points per 60 minutes. In essence, this means that for each game the Senators played during the playoffs, they were dominating their opponents in the shot attempt battle for nearly half of the contest and Karlsson was a safe bet to score a point. That the Senators could give Karlsson huge minutes and be sure that those minutes would work out favorably for them is one of the biggest reasons why this team was one bounce away from a Stanley Cup Final berth.
The final piece of the puzzle was the improvement of the depth up front. While the early-season iteration of the Senators saw players such as Chris Neil and Chris Kelly playing consistently, the trade deadline moves to bring in Alex Burrows, Tommy Wingels and Viktor Stalberg gave this team the level of forward depth that is necessary to compete in the playoffs, particularly as players like Mark Stone and Mike Hoffman struggled to find their regular season scoring touch.
In order to overcome those obstacles, it was necessary for unsung heroes to step up. For the Senators, three players who have been discounted for very different reasons stepped up in a huge way to propel this team forward. The first was Bobby Ryan, who had a much-criticized regular season in which he finished with his lowest point total since his rookie season. Ryan nearly doubled his production in the playoffs, leading the team with 2.75 points per 60 minutes. Clarke MacArthur, who carries with him another emotional story which motivated this team, returned to the lineup for the final four games of the regular season after missing the previous 156 with concussions. Nobody knew just how much MacArthur would be able to contribute upon his return, but he ranked near the top of the team in both point production and shot differential during these playoffs and had been something of a free top-six addition to the club down the stretch. The final surprise story has been Jean-Gabriel Pageau, who found himself among the team leaders in playoff production despite being considered more of a role player. In fact, when accounting for differences in ice time, Pageau led all Ottawa forwards in Dawson Sprigings’ Goals Above Replacement metric during the 2016–2017 season:
Pageau was relied upon heavily in these playoffs, with his ice time increasing by more than two minutes per game. He responded to the call, as did Anderson, Karlsson, MacArthur, Ryan and others. There is no doubt that the Senators experienced good fortune during these playoffs — they were the healthiest they have been in a long time and went 6–2 in overtime games — but there is a lot of undervalued talent on this team that has carried it to this point. Although Ottawa was unable to pull off its greatest upset yet and advance to face the Nashville Predators in the Stanley Cup Final, Dorion and Boucher deserve credit for their strong responses to adversity throughout the season and sound decision-making which resulted in an exciting playoff run for the Senators.
Data courtesy of NHL.com
