Youthful Senators can learn from playoff heartbreak

OTTAWA — It’s fair to say that sports allegiance is nine parts suffering to that one little nugget of triumph, when the moon is full — and blue. 

In theory, at least, the setbacks and heartache pave the way to glory, as it is in parables on the merits of sticking to the task despite being cut and bruised en route. 

When the ice chips had settled on Ottawa’s 3-2 overtime loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs on Tuesday, Senators captain Brady Tkachuk chose that theme. 

“It’s just a test of adversity and an opportunity for us to grow and get better,” Tkachuk said, in a mostly vacant visitors’ room, citing another lesson learned. This was a tougher pill than most, a game that the Senators could have had to even up a series rather than heading home down 2-0 in this best-of-seven playoff. 

The hope is that this was an honest duty paid toward future success, rather than some false Trumpian tariff. 

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That’s what keeps everyone invested, isn’t it, players, coaches, management, fans? A belief that today’s hardship leads to tomorrow’s championship. 

The Leafs are still clinging to a shred of this belief despite years of failure with the same star players. Who’s to say they won’t trip up again before this series is over. Or maybe this is the year they do something, while the 1967 Stanley Cup clock continues to tick. 

As painful as this setback was for the Senators, they remain a young team playing with house money. While no one would write them off yet, you know that general manager Steve Staios and his crew are making serious notes on where the Senators need to improve. 

There’s no questioning the resolve of these players who have twice fallen behind 2-0 on the scoreboard, but so quickly got the hang of playoff hockey that they clawed back in Game 2 to tie it late and force extra time. 

For whatever reason, the ghosts of Battles of Ontario past dictated that Max Domi, son of former Leafs villain Tie Domi, would thrust the dagger in OT on a shot that clanged post and in. 

Of all the lessons learned by all the playoff neophytes in Senators uniform, this one might be foremost: How about getting your first lead of the series one of these nights and let the Leafs chase the game?

In the big picture, winning this series isn’t the be-all for Ottawa. Though fans would love nothing better, they know hockey well enough to realize this team’s best years are to come. 

Toronto’s time is now. Or never, as far as the core group is concerned. 

Tkachuk is dead on. These playoff experiences are precious to players like himself, Tim Stutzle, Thomas Chabot, Jake Sanderson and the rest who are getting their first taste of it all. 

Think back to a different group of young Senators who first launched themselves into a playoff series — the first for the modern-era Senators — on a Steve Duchesne goal in Game 82 of the season, 1997. 

Just the other night I ran into a fan who wanted to talk some hockey. A boyhood Leafs fan who moved to Ottawa from Toronto and became a Sens fan for life on the very night Duchesne scored that goal against the Buffalo Sabres. 

What followed was dramatic. The young Sens ,with Alexei Yashin, Daniel Alfredsson, Wade Redden, Alex Daigle etc., got tangled up in a long series versus a Sabres team led by world-class goaltender Dominik Hasek. 

Though the Sens were a seventh seed up against second-seeded Buffalo, Hasek faltered and got hurt (or pulled the chute, depending on your viewpoint). Ottawa went toe-to-toe throughout, losing a heartbreaker in Game 7 OT when a Derek Plante shot dribbled in off the glove of Senators goaltender Ron Tugnutt. 

It was crushing at the time. But a year later, the Senators stunned the heavily favoured New Jersey Devils in six games, for the first playoff victory in the history of the relaunched franchise. 

Who can forget broadcaster Dean Brown’s call: “Igor Kravchuk — empty netter! — drives the nail through the Devils’ heart!”

It hardly mattered that Ottawa lost the next round against the Washington Capitals. 

The Senators were on the rise and in the playoff conversation for 11 consecutive years from 1997-2008. 

Over that period, the Senators reached the Eastern Conference Final twice and, of course, played Anaheim in the 2007 Stanley Cup Final. 

The current Senators core has the potential to do similar things, but perhaps finish the job this time. 

Meanwhile, the task at hand is getting back into this series. 

It will be different at home, in front of some hungry fans after eight years without playoff hockey. 

Of course, the odds of a complete comeback are long. In their playoff history, no Sens team has come back from being down 2-0 in a series. Their record is 0-8 in that situation. 

The beauty of this young group and smattering of veterans — they don’t get caught up in the past and they don’t quit in the present. 

Expect a furious push on home ice Thursday and Saturday in Games 3 and 4. 

The Senators have this idea of giving the Leafs another playoff lesson to add to their many accumulated in recent years. 

Stay tuned for more suffering and glory to come. 

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