Firewagon Senators putting a scare into Atlantic, aiming squarely at top three

OTTAWA — The St. Patrick’s Day mood has been a bit muted for the Ottawa Senators and their fans in recent years. 

By mid-March, the steam has tended to run out of their annual playoff hopes, like water seeping out of a spring snowbank. Sometimes the setbacks were cruel. 

Just two years ago around this time, young captain Brady Tkachuk was lamenting a brutal March loss to the rebuilding Chicago Blackhawks when Ottawa was within three points of a playoff spot. 

“I guess we took them lightly,” Tkachuk mumbled at the time, visibly distressed. “I guess we forgot that’s where we were at not too long ago. It can’t happen at this point of the season, when we’re trying to make this push.” 

In the end, the Senators finished six points behind the last wild-card spot in 2023, the closest they would come to a playoff berth under head coach D.J. Smith.

March was the month when Sens’ leaders Tkachuk and Claude Giroux were about as enthusiastic in a media scrum as a dentist-phobe heading into oral surgery. Their pained faces muttered words like “unacceptable”  and “disappointing.” And the standard, “This is not where we want to be.”

Ottawa’s young core was growing up, but not fast enough for themselves, the organization or the fan base. Every spring since 2017, for the kids in the hall, the writing was on the wall: No playoffs. Again. 

Well, that was then. 

The new and improved Ottawa Senators are a firewagon, and this spring hockey season is going to be lit in the nation’s capital. Never mind a wild card, if this keeps up, the Sens might find themselves among the top three in the Atlantic Division when the regular season is done. 

Oh, and have you seen Tkachuk in front of a microphone lately?

“It’s all because of you guys,” a beaming Tkachuk told a live Senators crowd via TSN’s rinkside reporter Claire Hannah after his overtime goal against the New York Rangers.

The raucous capacity matinee crowd in the Canadian Tire Centre exploded with energy from Tkachuk’s message.  

“Let’s goooo!” Tkachuk shouted. “Here we go! Wow.”

Words matter. They tell a mood. And around here, the spring messaging has changed from “unacceptable” and “that can’t happen,” to — Oh, it’s happening, all right. 

No-go has become "Let’s goooo!" 

With 16 games to go, the Senators are all but a lock for a playoff spot. And they look every bit the part.

“It’s really fun, for sure,” said winger Drake Batherson after the Sens’ Monday morning practice at the CTC. “For seven years here, we haven’t really been in this position at this time of year. 

“You can feel the buzz in the city and it makes it even more fun playing out there ... even around town getting groceries, you can see the excitement on people’s faces.”

Big brother Blue’s shins kicked

If you’re any good at reading lips, you would have seen the “Let’s go!” screams mouthed by goal scorers such as Giroux and Jake Sanderson in the Senators latest spring triumph — an entertaining 4-2 comeback win over the Maple Leafs in Toronto Saturday. Batherson was a big contributor with his two-way game and solo assist on the game-tying goal by David Perron.  

Yes, it was the prime-time Hockey Night In Canada broadcast involving the historic Leafs, which means the entire country is now in on the East’s best-kept secret — the surging Sens. Winners of six straight. The team that just swept the Leafs 3-0 in the season series. 

Of course, in Toronto, it’s a bit early to panic. That usually comes in April and May, when the fear of playoff failure spreads like a virus. 

There wasn’t much doubt, though, that the best team on the ice Saturday, the hungrier and more determined club, wore the white, red and black visitor uniforms. 

Even in the depths of their rebuild, the Senators found a way to give their provincial rival a game. Now, the Senators have a level of maturity and competitiveness such that they must be taken seriously. 

Defenceman Thomas Chabot called it a near-perfect road effort in a game where “every little play matters.”

Kid brothers are known to kick the shins of older bro and then brace for the beatdown to come. Until that day when the kid flexes surprising new muscles. Think of the Tkachuk brothers. Legends are the stories of Brady mixing it up with older brother Matthew, striving to keep up. We imagine there came a day when Matthew looked over this growing giant with the red hair and Howdy Doody freckles and said, “Um, Brady, that’s probably enough for today.”

We can’t be certain that the Leafs and Sens have reached that point in the relationship just yet. Let’s keep a March 15 regular season game, No. 66 in an 82-game schedule, in perspective. 

The Leafs might feel they have a reserve response to getting repeatedly kicked in the shins by the up-and-coming Sens. Still, there is a growing confidence in Ottawa, stemming from the crease of Linus Ullmark and out, toward the revamped forward group, that there is no fear of the Leafs. Or any team, for that matter. 

If a playoff matchup looms between the Sens and Buds for the first time in two decades, fans in Ottawa, Gatineau and the Valley would say "Bring it on." Better the Leafs in Round 1 than Florida or Tampa. 

Really, though, just talking about potential playoff opponents brings a spark to local conversation. 

St. Paddy’s Day suds will taste good today. A matchup with the feisty Montreal Canadiens is on deck and the playoffs — did you say playoffs? — are looming.