Why the Ottawa Senators Will Win the 2007 Stanley Cup

Remember when Ottawa joined the NHL as an expansion team in 1992? Probably not. Who even played for them? Laurie Boschman was the first team captain. In the first season the Senators won 10 games out of 84! This was not the original Ottawa hockey team (founded in 1893) who played until 1934 when they moved to St. Louis and became the Eagles. The Eagles folded after one season in 1935. The original team won ten Stanley Cups. The second coming of the Ottawa Senators were the laughingstock of the league in their first four seasons. Things started to turn around when they named Jacques Martin head coach and their high draft picks started to develop such as Alexei Yashin, Radek Bonk and Marian Hossa. Not all their picks matured into All-Stars. The first overall pick in the 1993 draft Alexandre Daigle set many records in juniors but he never made a name for himself in the NHL. Last news I heard about him was he was cut by Minnesota and he went to play in Switzerland. But to stay on topic, Ottawa has made the playoffs ten consecutive seasons including the current season. But they have never made it to the Stanley Cup Finals.

They were eliminated in the first round 5 times, the second round exits total 3 and in 2003 they lost to New Jersey in the seventh game of the Eastern Conference Finals. After losing in 2004, Martin was fired and Bryan Murray took over as coach to start the 2005-06 season. They have a lot of potential but their goalie Dominik Hasek did his thing and got injured in the playoffs. Emery lacked NHL playoff experience and the Ottawa Senators were upset by an up and coming team from Buffalo. But I think this year is different. The team has a combination of forwards Jason Spezza, Dany Heatley, and Daniel Alfredsson with defensive defensemen Anton Volchenkov and Chris Phillips. They have a hot goalie in Ray Emery (who started the season as the backup to Martin Gerber). Emery took over in November after Gerber failed to stop the puck with any consistency. Gerber should be used to this as he was a backup to Jean Sebastien Giguere and he was the back up to Cam Ward for the 2006 Stanley Cup Champion Carolina Hurricanes. Which brings me to my point. The Senators have the backup goalie from last years team as their backup. He can provide useful information to his new teammates on what it is like to win the Cup. Plus Eugene Melnyk promised fans that Ottawa would win eventually. But on a more serious note, the Senators now have the playoff experience and the physical presence that past teams lacked which is necessary to make a serious championship run. Back to those great players again. Nobody is playing better in the playoffs than Daniel Alfredsson. He is the team leader and he leads vocally in the locker room and by example on the ice. I have been a Senators fan since 1995 and I have patiently waited for them to do something special. This could be the year! A Canadian team has not won a Stanley Cup since the 1993 Montreal Canadiens* The asterisk is for the 2004 season when Calgary had the Cup winning goal disallowed in game 6. Tampa Bay went on to win games 6 and 7.