Ottawa Senators

Like the ancient Roman government officials from which their name (and logo) derives, the Ottawa Senators had long little more than a footnote in the dustiest pages of the history books to most hockey fans, a team of long-dead ghosts in fuzzy black-and-white Stanley Cup photos back in the days when goalies wore funny peaked hats and still held their sticks like the rest of the team. Founded in 1883, the original Senators won the Cup on 11 occasions and played in the NHL from 1917-1934, after which they folded due to the financial pressures of the Great Depression coupled with the league’s expansion into the United States (Ottawa remains a small market today, but it was absolutely tiny at that time). Incredibly, nearly 60 years after their predecessors had vanished from the league, the Senators were resurrected as a franchise and began play in the 1992-93 season. The earlier years were very tough, with the Senators recording some of the worst regular season records of all time at 10-70-4 in their debut season and 14-61-9 in their sophomore outing. Bolstered by some of the top draft picks that come from finishing so low, the team made their first playoff appearance in 1997, taking the Buffalo Sabres to seven games before they were put to the sword. They won their first-ever playoff series in the following year against the powerful New Jersey Devils and subsequent years saw the Sens, led by the great duo of Daniel Alfredsson and Jason Spezza, become a consistent presence in the playoffs. The team came within a game of their first Stanley Cup Finals in modern times when they met the Devils again in the 2003 Eastern Conference Finals, but lost a heartbreaker in seven games. The Sens would go one better in 2007 when they swatted aside the Pittsburgh Penguins, Devils, and Sabres (in five games apiece) to set up a Stanley Cup showdown against a fellow 1990s expansion team, the Anaheim Ducks. Unfortunately (for the Senators), the Ducks reversed the score on them in the Finals, beating the Senators in five to deny Ottawa its first Stanley Cup since 1927. Since that loss, the team has not been back to the Finals again, though they did come within a whisker of it again in 2017 when they lost in seven to Sidney Crosby’s Penguins. Recent years have seen the Senators miss the playoffs for six seasons running. But with the 100 year-anniversary of their predecessors’ final Stanley Cup win fast approaching, could we see a Senators centennial victory for the ages by 2027? The team, and their fans, would love to add a new chapter to all the old ones in the history books.