Playoff Gameday: Eastern Conference Finals Game 1

PITTSBURGH VS OTTAWA

PPG PAINTS ARENA – PITTSBURGH, PA

7:00 PM EST. NBC

SERIES TIED 0-0

For the second consecutive season the Pittsburgh Penguins have reached the Eastern Conference Finals to face a young, exciting, upstart squad from the Atlantic Division.

The Ottawa Senators have become all the NHL’s cute and adorable playoff darling after beating the Boston Bruins and NY Rangers to win the JV side of the Eastern Conference bracket. Let’s take a quick look at a few of the story lines that have made the Sens just so beloved to this point.

• NHL media folks at some point figured out, hey, Erik Karlsson is good and fun so they started saying he played defense when he always did anyways.
• Clarke MacArthur has had a Crosby like concussion battle. His return late in the year was a genuinely cool story.
• Early in the season goalie Craig Anderson’s wife, Nicholle, was diagnosed with throat cancer. Anderson’s play has been a bright spot for the Sens amidst his family’s battle with cancer.
• Jean Gabriel Pageau escaped from Roloff Farm and scored 4 goals in one game.

That’s a lot to like! But, in the interest of fairness, ya gotta hear both sides.

• The Senators owner Eugene Melnyk is a deranged megalomaniac who talks about Erik Karlsson like he’s a god damn slave or something.
• Melnyk also thinks the show CSI is real or some shit and is an in general piece of shit.
• Remember Marc Methot? Yeah, he’s the one that threw a gigantic pissfit because Crosby slashed him. Also, Melnyk has some taeks on this if you can believe it.
• Dion Phaneuf
• Alexandre Burrows who besides playing hockey like a total shithead spells his name like a god damn idiot.
• The NHL’s dipshittery of a playoff format allowed the 5th seeded Sens to beat the 6th and 7th seeds to reach the ECF (meanwhile the 2nd seeded Pens had to be #1 and #3). Cinderella, not so much.
• Even with a playoff team, a generational defenseman willing them to the Eastern Conference Finals, and all the good stuff mentioned above their fans don’t really give a shit.
• And of course, this

This looks like a pretty decided victory for the fuck these guys contingent. Let the hate flow.

Lines: From the sounds of practice on Friday the Pens are playing around with different lines throughout the bottom six. Hagelin did practice in a normal jersey Friday so tough to know what his health status really is. No update on Daley.

Pittsburgh:

Guentzel-Crosby-Rust

Kunitz-Malkin-Kessel

Sheary-Bonino-Hornqvist

Wilson/Hagelin-Cullen-Rowney

Dumoulin-Hainsey

Maatta-Schultz

Cole-Ruhwedel

Fleury-Murray

Ottawa:

Dzingel-Turris-Burrows

Stalberg-Brassard-Ryan

Hoffman-Smith-Stone

MacArthur-Pageau-Pyatt

Methot-Karlsson

Phaneuf-Ceci

Harpur-Wideman (not the one who tried to murder a referee)

Anderson-Condon

The Senators would not have come this far without Erik Karlsson. I realize that’s not a groundbreaking statement but seriously, holy shit.

So basically when Karlsson is off the ice the Senators score only 30% of the time. It’s no secret he’s been playing on a broken foot (he said as much at the end of the Rangers series) and then this update came in Friday morning.

Karlsson left practice almost right away

— Steve Lloyd (@TSNSteveLloyd) May 12, 2017

I guess this could be nothing, but it’s hard to see the Senators standing a chance in hell against this Penguins team without Karlsson playing another incredible series.

Here’s to adding another ass-kicking to the long history of mediocrity that is the Ottawa Senators. Let’s fucking go.

Pens in 5