NHL Playoff Preview: Senators and Devils

Martin Brodeur is amongst the best goalies in NHL playoff history (AP Images)

Ottawa charged into the conference semifinals for the second consecutive season with a victory over the young Pittsburgh Penguins. This year, the Senators hope to advance to the modern franchise’s second conference finals in history.

The Sens will face the New Jersey Devils, a team that knows all about postseason success. With three Stanley Cup titles (1995, 2000, 2003) to their recent credit, the Devils have been beating the best of the East for years – among those teams are the Senators, who fell to New Jersey in a classic seven-game conference finals in 2003.

However, the Devils aren’t without concerns, chief among those the play of goalie Martin Brodeur. The man who back-stopped New Jersey to all those titles by compiling a career playoff goals-against-average of 1.90 and save percentage of .921, struggled at times in the first round against Tampa Bay. After three games, two of them losses, he’d stopped just 87 percent of shots. True, he bounced back and stopped 95 percent in the remaining three games, all wins, but the Senators are tough to face with a shaky goalie.

The Sens effectively shut down Sidney Crosby and the rest of Pittsburgh’s young studs, holding the Pens to an average of just 2.0 goals per game. Goalie Ray Emery was solid but never faced more than 26 shots in any game. In fact, Ottawa out-shot Pittsburgh in every game and by a combined margin of 151-110. The Sens were led by captain Daniel Alfredsson, who scored three goals and added three assists.

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