Now we know: the Sens will play the Penguins in the first round. Ehhhh. I had the Penguins/Flyers game on in the background while I was working on a paper today. If the Penguins had won they’d have finished first overall, but they would have played Philadelphia in the first round. The commentators on TV were speculating that the Penguins didn’t try very hard to win because they want to play the Sens. Crosby didn’t even play — he took the day off.

If it’s true that they threw the game, I’d love to see it come back and bite them, but I understand why they’d rather play the Sens than the Flyers. The Flyers are goons and by playing them you risk serious injury or death; the Sens have struggled lately and are without Alfie and Mike Fisher. They’re now saying Alfie may be out for a month at least. The Penguins are the only team in the East or maybe the whole league, in my opinion, whose best scorers might actually match or better Ottawa’s and now they have former Sen (former favourite player of mine who was traded for current favourite player of mine) Marian Hossa as well. This could be a problem. I’m slightly concerned about the fact that the Pens might possibly get a bit of preferential treatment from the officials because of their position as “The New Face of the NHL.” Also, they dive.

As much as I did not like the idea of playing Washington, I was starting to think it might be a good thing because the Sens would know going in that they couldn’t play the way they did in the regular season and win against them. It might have been a good way to force them to change their game. They did fairly well against Pittsburgh in the regular season so now they might not have that wakeup call. I just don’t know. Hopefully someone will tell the players that the Penguins might have thrown their game today to get to play them. That should piss them off.

The Sens lost 2-1 to Boston today … but still clinched a playoff spot. Thank you, Carolina Hurricanes, for losing to Florida. Nice one! Now if Washington wins tomorrow Carolina will miss the playoffs. Oops.

Despite the losing I thought they played fairly well. Not brilliant, but not awful. With Alfie and Mike Fisher both out, Dany Heatley was wearing the A of the alternate captain today. I liked seeing him put in that leadership role.

So they’re in, but they won’t find out until Sunday where they finish in the standings or who they’ll play. At the moment they could end up finishing 6th, 7th, or 8th, and they could play Montreal, Pittsburgh, Carolina, or the dreaded Washington. I actually think they could beat any of those teams except Washington, provided they don’t play like crap of course. In order for them to play Washington, Boston would have to lose tomorrow, Washington would have to win, and Philadelphia would have to straight up lose their game on Sunday or lose it in overtime or a shootout. I think Washington will definitely win tomorrow but I am not convinced either Boston or Philly will lose, which means the Sens would end up in 8th. That’s quite the epic collapse considering they were in first place for 143 days straight this season and no one else has held it for longer than two weeks total. Yes, all in all, it was a very bad season. But they always say that the regular season means nothing when the playoffs start. This is one time I hope that’s true.

The Sens won 8-2 over the Leafs today. I am so glad I gave up trying to understand them a while back because I’d be seriously confused right about now. Heater seemed to come out of his slump in this one. He played really well and scored two goals, but Alfie and Mike Fisher both left the game injured and apparently neither one will play tomorrow. If either of their injuries turns out to be very serious, that’s very bad news for a playoff situation that already looked extremely bleak.