Sens, Habs are a long way from their 2013 playoff series

It is human nature to take things for granted, in good times and in bad. 

This is true of family and friends, even treasured pets. We are never prepared for the inevitable. 

Luckily, we can count on our pastimes to be fun and games, right? Yeah, no? (modern player dialogue joke). 

When I first joined the sports department of a newspaper many years ago, it was known, somewhat derogatorily, as the Toy Department. In theory, sports were not life and death, not as “important” as news or politics. 

But try telling that to the tens of millions of sporting fans who pour their hearts, emotions and hard-earned dollars into their favourite sports team. 

Back when the Ottawa Senators were good — really good — it felt as though the playoff seasons would roll on forever. From 1997-2009, the Sens were the can’t-miss-kids, always in contention, if not always a true contender. 

Some years, like the first playoff series against the Buffalo Sabres in 1997, there was joy just being there, a gloriously fun ride even if it ended in Game 7 overtime on a Derek Plante shot that trickled off the glove of Ron Tugnutt. 

The Senators probably should have won a Stanley Cup in 2003 (curse the Devils) or 2006 (Dominik Hasek introduced the word "adductor" into our vocabulary). They got to the final in 2007, facing a stronger opponent in Anaheim than they might have encountered in those other two years of true contention. 

There was always next year. Except that after 2008, next year didn’t look as promising. A torrid start to the 2007-08 season (how would fans today react to a 16-3-0 record out of the gate?) meant little as Ottawa faded in the second half and was swept by Pittsburgh in the first round of the playoffs. From there, the slope was slippery. 

No playoffs in 2009 or 2011. That became a norm as a mini-rebuild got underway in 2011. 

In 2010 and 2012 came more first-round exits, the 2012 loss in New York against the Rangers especially agonizing with a Game 7, 2-1 defeat at Madison Square Garden. 

Suddenly, it was six years since Ottawa had won a playoff round.

And then came the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season. 

Who knew what to expect after the league crammed 48 games into a schedule starting on Jan. 19th? 

Habs and Sens: 2013 playoff rivals

The Montreal Canadiens finished first in what was then the Northeast Division. Ottawa finished fourth, but with just four fewer wins, to set up the first Senators-Canadiens playoff matchup in the modern era of the Sens franchise.

It was eventful, to say the least. 

There was bloodshed. The Game 1 hit by Ottawa defenceman Eric Gryba on Habs forward Lars Eller was vicious and established a tone for the series. 

The rhetoric was outstanding. 

Senators head coach Paul MacLean was on top of his oratorical game, right from the start when he wanted it established pre-series that the Canadiens were the favourite. 

“We don’t feel the pressure, we apply the pressure,” said Habs head coach Michel Therrien, trying to keep up. It would be a lost cause. 

After the Gryba hit on Eller, MacLean said the Canadiens should be mad at “Player 61, whoever he is,” referring to the pass from Raphael Diaz. 

Montreal’s Brandon Prust would say later that the Habs didn’t care what that “bug-eyed, fat walrus” had to say, and of course he meant MacLean. 

“Well, bug-eyed? I’ve never been called that before,” MacLean responded. “That’s a new one. Walrus? Ahh, that’s too easy. But I will tell you one thing — I’m not fat. I might be husky, but I’m not fat. So, I took offence to that.”

Game 3 was a movie. Nothing less. 

Jean-Gabriel Pageau, the undersized, underrated Senators centre, who grew up in a French-speaking family across the river in Hull (now Gatineau), chipped a tooth off a high-stick from P.K. Subban on Pageau’s first playoff goal. He would score two more in a 6-1 rout as Senators fans chanted, “O-le!!” — a Bell Centre chant that now mocked the Habs on the road. 

“I might put it under my pillow and see what happens,” Pageau said, of the lost tooth. 

Is the Tooth Fairy actually a Sens fan?

Weirdly, a player lost a tooth in each of the first three games of the series, and the lost chicklet signified the winning team each time. 

Not to be outdone in the post-game access, MacLean said the city of Ottawa should rename the three bridges between the Nation’s Capital and Gatineau. Their new names: “Jean, Gabriel and Pageau.”

In the end, the Habs fell meekly, in five games. Montreal goalie Cary Price was rather ordinary and then he got hurt. In the other net, Craig Anderson provided the kind of steady, metronome-like goaltending that Ottawa has been seeking since Anderson left (to be fair, he had up and down years himself). 

Montreal captain Brian Gionta was done after two games with a torn biceps injury that led to another quotable moment, this time from Therrien.

“It’s tough,” he said, of the loss of Gionta. “My captain was crying in my arms. These players have more courage than people might think.”

The series ended with another  6-1 rout in Game 5. 

At the Bell Centre that night, I will never forget the joy on the faces of Senators mainstays like general manager Bryan Murray and president Cyril Leeder. 

The Senators had won playoff series before, but this was the first time since the Senators rejoined the NHL in 1992 that they had defeated an Original Six team. Four times Ottawa played the Maple Leafs from 2000-2004 and four times they lost. 

They had just defeated the Habs, Les Glorieux, a team that everyone growing up in Ottawa and the Valley admired and respected for their history. 

At this moment, no one could convince the Senators and their fans that sports were just for fun. 

Anyway, the merriment subsided. In round two, the Penguins knocked off Ottawa in five games and by summertime, Daniel Alfredsson fled to Detroit as the Eugene Melnyk era took hold. 

The Canadiens and Senators would meet again in 2015 with the Habs winning the rematch, ending the great "Hamburglar" run in Ottawa. 

A surprising run to the Eastern Conference Final in 2017 marked the end of competitive hockey for the Senators to this day.  

Habs and Sens striving for future glory

Once more for old time’s sake … on Saturday (7 p.m. ET on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+), the Senators and Canadiens meet at the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa’s final home game of the season. Fan Appreciation Night II. 

Both franchises sit among the bottom seven teams in the league, a victory over the other at this point has bragging and draft position implications, but little else. 

The Habs and their fans seem to be having a better time of it. Montreal is deeper into the rebuild at this point and fans can look back as recently as 2021 when their team was in the Cup final.

Senators fans, mired in the franchise’s longest playoff drought — seven years — dared get their hopes up last fall that this was a playoff team. 

Is the roster that much ahead of the Canadiens’ at this point?

In theory, yes. But a lot of experts thought that Ottawa, Detroit and Buffalo were all on the right track this season. Only the Red Wings are still in the mix, part of a mediocre group flailing away for the second wild-card spot in the east. 

Who is to say what next year will bring? I, for one, am done with forecasts based on rosters of unproven players. 

Let us say this much. May the dark days that feel endless help fans appreciate the good days when they arrive. Don’t take them for granted when they get here. 

The next Sens-Habs series won’t get here soon enough.