OTTAWA — Bryan Murray couldn’t sleep. It wouldn’t have mattered how his Ottawa Senators fared.
But the fact they pulled off an improbable three-goal comeback over Pittsburgh to keep their playoff chase in high gear made the long hours from Tuesday night to Wednesday morning much more bearable.
“My sister actually texted me and she was talking about the game and she was asking me how I was feeling because she knows I had chemo yesterday,” Murray said at Canadian Tire Centre. “Well, you don’t sleep the night after you have chemo but I feel pretty good today because of the team. There’s no question.
“It goes hand-in-hand. I’ve talked to my oncologist about this, ‘How involved should I be and how is stress going to effect my life and all that?’ He’s all positive. It’s good to be part of something like this.”
The 72-year-old is locked in the kind of battle that makes a playoff race seem meaningless. With Stage 4 colon cancer, Murray doesn’t know how long he has to live.
However, the Senators architect says he’s drawn inspiration from his team’s inspired performance over the last several weeks — an emotional roller-coaster that hit a crescendo Tuesday when it fell behind Pittsburgh 3-0, only to rally for a 4-3 overtime victory.
“It’s a little stressful,” said Murray. “After the first period I was ready to fire everybody, but they played hard.”
The Senators are doing everything they can to author one of the most inspiring stories you’ll ever read. Their odds of drafting Connor McDavid were higher than their listed playoff chances when injuries forced them to turn to AHL goaltender Andrew Hammond on Feb. 18, and yet here they are with a chance to qualify for the post-season.
What’s most amazing is how frequently Ottawa has fallen behind during a 19-3-3 season-saving stretch that has Murray’s fingerprints all over it.
“Bryan has been so instrumental with us and with this run, obviously with the moves he’s made, and just seeing him around the room and the attitude that he brings, it’s pretty amazing,” said defenceman Marc Methot. “He’s in there, he still cracks jokes with his dry sense of humour. It’s inspiring for us to see that. God, you come to the rink and you complain about a couple of bumps and bruises here and there.
“And then you see Bryan walk in there and he’s kind of strutting in the room. It makes you realize that things aren’t so bad and it’s just a game and we’re lucky.”
Murray has shown tremendous courage by publicly discussing his battle to try and spread awareness. Doctors believe he had cancer for seven to 10 years without being diagnosed — it had spread to his lungs and liver by the time they found it — because he had never received a colonoscopy.
Since then, numerous executives around the sport have gone in for testing.
Ottawa’s playoff charge has been driven by a number of young players that were all acquired during Murray’s tenure here. Given the trying situation the general manager is facing, some feel an obligation to reward his belief in them.
“Bryan’s a great person,” said centre Kyle Turris. “He’s a phenomenal guy and we’re trying to win games for him, for that (health) reason obviously, but also because he’s shown the faith in us from Day 1. He didn’t make any trades at the deadline, he believed in our group and it’s nice that we’ve finally put together a run that’s given us an opportunity to make the playoffs.”
It certainly hasn’t been easy.
The last five Ottawa games have extended past regulation and Murray has found himself riding the wave of emotion right along with the entire city.
To qualify for the playoffs the team will almost certainly need to finish the season with road wins over the Rangers and Flyers. They’ll also need some help elsewhere to pass one of Boston, Pittsburgh, Detroit or the Islanders in the Eastern Conference standings.
The fact they still have a chance is an accomplishment in itself.
“I don’t know if I’ve seen anything like it in my time in pro hockey, with the streak we’ve been on and comebacks and Hammond playing just completely out of his mind and everybody stepping up at different times,” said Turris. “It’s been an unbelievable story. Now we’ve just got to make it our own destiny, to make the playoffs, and there’s still two important games left.”
Whether they ultimately succeed or fall short, perspective won’t be hard to find. A playoff race isn’t a matter of life and death even if that sort of language is often used in dressing rooms at this time of year.
Murray is literally in the fight of his life and the Senators have given him a reason to believe that something grander is at work right now.
“No question,” he said. “If you have to go through this shit you might as well enjoy it with a group like this as well.”
