Congratulations to the Eastern Conference Champions, the Ottawa Senators

Congratulations to the Eastern Conference Champions, the Ottawa Senators! Captain Daniel Alfredsson passes on touching the Prince of Wales trophy. This is a tradition as past teams have done because the true goal is to win Lord Stanley's Cup. How did the Ottawa Senators beat the Buffalo Sabres? Ottawa stuck to their game plan. As long as they play within their system, they believe they will win. Let's recap the Eastern conference finals series. It started off with Ottawa's top line of Daniel Alfredsson, Jason Spezza and Dany Heatley matching up with Buffalo's top line of Daniel Briere, Thomas Vanek and Maxim Afinogenov. Buffalo's 2^nd line of Chris Drury, Tim Connolly and Derek Roy also drew attention from Ottawa's top line. The defense pairing of Chris Phillips and Anton Volchenkov helped shut down Buffalo's top offensive threats.

Connolly is one of Buffalo's most talented skaters. He missed 80 regular season games due to post concussion syndrome. He was second on the team with 9 assists in the playoffs. But Ottawa held him to zero goals in the series. Another problem Buffalo did not address (but Don Cherry did on every episode of Coach's corner) was covering the points in their own zone. Buffalo, the President's Trophy winner for best regular season record, could never get their offense going like they did in the regular season when they score 308 goals. Leading goal scorer Thomas Vanek scored two goals in the series but one was disallowed. That is an improvement for Vanek because last year he was benched in the playoffs.

Buffalo played a collapsing defense. When the puck was down behind the net or below the face-off circles, all five skaters on Buffalo would crowd around the net to try and deflect passes and shots.

Special teams played a big part as well. In game one, Ottawa was 2 for 6 on the power play and they killed off all five of Buffalo's power plays. In game 2 Ottawa was 2 for 4 on the power play and they killed off seven Buffalo power plays. In game 3, Ottawa was 0 for 6 and Buffalo was 0 for 7. In game 4, Buffalo was 1 for 4 and Ottawa was 0 for 5. In game 5, Ottawa was 0 for 4 and Buffalo was 1 for 7. Notice that the team with the better power play won this series.

Was it the new ugly Sabres jerseys that caused Buffalo to lose? That cannot be the reason. Buffalo wore their alternate jersey with the old logo in game five. Buffalo lost and Ottawa won due to the Alfredsson- Spezza- Heatly line playing their best the entire series. This was a close series. With the exception of game one, every game was decided by one goal. That is how the playoffs usually are played in hockey. Close, low-scoring games are what fans are used to. This makes goaltending critical. I am a big fan of Ryan Miller because I watched him dominate at Michigan State. He is going to be an All-Star in this league for a long time. But Ray Emery has improved immensely since last season when he was Dominik Hasek's back-up. He is playing with so much confidence. He did not panic in game two when Buffalo scored 2 goals in the first 6 minutes and 13 seconds.

How about that game 5? It went to overtime. Alfredsson's line score all 3 of Ottawa's goals. Alfredsson scored the game winner on a one on three. He used Brian Campbell as a screen and his shot deflected off of Campbell's stick beating Miller and sending the Senators to their first Stanley Cup Final in franchise history. Ottawa came out a little tentative in the 1^st period willing to ice the puck and not take many chances.

Throughout the series the Senators have been able to comeback when Buffalo was ahead. In game 2, they erased a 2 goal deficit. In game 4, they were losing 3-0 then scored 2 goals to make it close.

Ottawa is now 12-3 in the 2007 postseason. They will either travel to Anaheim or Detroit for game one of the Stanley Cup Finals.