Advantage Carolina: What The Senators Have To Improve On For Game 2 Monday Night

Facing the Eastern Conference’s number one seed, the Ottawa Senators knew they were in for a fight. Three seconds into the game, the two organizations’ captains engaged in a fight of their own. For the third time in the last 30 days, Brady Tkachuk dropped the gloves off the opening faceoff taking on the Carolina Hurricanes’ Jordan Staal.

“I just wanted to show that it’s going to be a long series,” Tkachuk stated, describing what led to another early tilt. “(Staal) wanted to do the same thing. The building loved it and got the energy going.

It got the playoffs started for the whole league. ” In what was projected to be a tightly contested series between two structurally sound defensive teams, many pundits believed the Senators could exploit Carolina with their physicality as a bigger, more imposing team. Unfortunately for the Sens, that did not happen in Game 1.

The Hurricanes imposed themselves often and early with their forecheck, with one of the night’s biggest being laid by Jordan Martinook, driving Dennis Gilbert’s left shoulder into the end boards glass 3:47 into the first period. The Hurricanes would finish the night with 57 hits to the Senators’ 39. Under normal circumstances, that disparity would signify that the Hurricanes spent much of the night chasing the puck and defending, but that was not the case.