One goal away: An oral history of the Senators’ 2017 playoff run

Entering the 2016–17 season, the Ottawa Senators had only made the playoffs once in the previous three years. 

With the best defenceman in the world, Erik Karlsson, and an above-average netminder, Craig Anderson, that wasn’t good enough for the organization and the fan base, especially considering getting into the playoffs in 2015 required the ‘Hamburglar’ run.

Even if there were no superstars up front, the team also had a solid core of forwards in their prime, which included Mark Stone (24), Jean-Gabriel Pageau (24), Kyle Turris (27), Mike Hoffman (27), Derick Brassard (29), Bobby Ryan (29), Clarke MacArthur (31).

Ahead of the season, the organization installed Pierre Dorion as the new general manager and Guy Boucher as the new head coach with an entirely new staff that included Marc Crawford as associate coach and Daniel Alfredsson as senior advisor of hockey operations.

There was a lot of optimism in the air, even if most media outlets had the Senators finishing outside of the playoffs. Could Boucher tighten up the defensive system for a team that had allowed the fifth-most goals in the league a season prior? The answer would turn out to be yes.

The ending to their season was not what the Senators or their fans hoped for. But the memories of that trip to the conference finals are still vivid for Senators like Craig Anderson, Bobby Ryan and Marc Methot, who took some time over the past month to reminisce on their memories from that run.

Guy Boucher’s modified left wing lock

Guy Boucher was a bit of an anomaly amongst NHL coaches during the early 2010s, when he was named head coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning. 

For one, he never played a professional game in North America following the conclusion of his CIS career with McGill, let alone an NHL game.

But that didn’t make Boucher unique. Other successful coaches in the league at the time — like John Tortorella, Mike Babcock, Barry Trotz, Jacques Martin, Paul Maurice, and Peter DeBoer — also had no NHL experience.

What made Boucher unique was the 1-3-1 defensive system that he employed that led to an infamous moment in 2011 when he was coaching for the Lightning. 

The opposing Philadelphia Flyers refused to play ball with his neutral-zone trap, instead opting to wait behind their net with the puck for more than a minute of game action while the Lightning stayed in formation in the neutral zone.

Boucher brought the system with him to Ottawa when he was hired as head coach ahead of the 2016–17 season. 

“It combined defence and boring hockey — which players don't like to play — but obviously, they like being in the playoffs,” said Gord Wilson, who has covered the Sens since Day One as a radio colour commentator.

“It can be a tough watch. But Ottawa is interested in wins, not entertainment,” wrote Bruins beat reporter Fluto Shinzawa at the time, while he was with the Boston Globe previewing the first-round playoff series with the Senators.

On the left side of the Senators blue line, there was a certain mold of player that the Senators liked — big, physical, and smart — with an extra emphasis on physical. Dion Phaneuf, Marc Methot, and Mark Borowiecki were a perfect trio for Boucher to play a “left D lock.”

While those three may have been excited for the new system, the forwards — especially those in contract years — were not as enthused.

MARC METHOT (2012–2017): Early on, like before we even really kind of got to know him that well — a lot of question marks, right? We weren't sure what to expect. You know, he had a reputation, super defensive, which was music [to the ears] of guys like myself. Because I think having a little more structure in a game was what the organization was looking for. But right off the bat, I think just the way we were built as a team, it just complemented us so well, and we had a really strong, kind of physical left side on D, and that helped us implement that left-D lock that everyone talked about at the time.

BOBBY RYAN (2013–2020): Everybody had heard about Guy's system, and I think there was a quiet anticipation to what it was going to actually entail. I think there were a few guys going into that season that were on the brink of a big contract and thought that Guy's defensive system was going to be hard to play in, and to put up points in that system so that they could get paid, right? Which I completely understand. I've been there. I get it. I had the luxury of already being under contract, for [the] long-term, a high-paying one. But these guys want to get paid. Everybody wants to win, and everybody wants to get paid.

METHOT: It was really awkward, I mean, implementing that, and the emphasis on the left defenseman to not back up. For people that don't quite understand, we're very used to accepting a rush and allowing it to come towards us. But Guy's, sort of, philosophy was, you're basically skating into that player in the neutral zone and having a high F3 and some support valves behind you that would scoop up the puck. So that was one part of it, [a] rather big part of it. That, I think, took a while.

CRAIG ANDERSON (2010-2020): I feel like we kind of knew a little bit about it because, when he was in Tampa [the system] was kind of talked about. But I think the big thing with Guy when he came in was he wanted to get to know everybody, what made each individual tick. I know we had extensive meetings for him to get to know everybody.

RYAN: For me going in, I talked to Guy a few times. And I had played against Guy in Tampa — a lot of guys hadn't — and I remember how hard that was to play against. And I was like, if we can be that team and do that same thing, like, [Steven Stamkos] scored so many goals there that year. But yeah, going in, I think there was a quiet anticipation, maybe some optimism, and then maybe some skepticism too. So a little bit of everything across the board.

METHOT: I can still remember Guy and a couple other coaches, maybe, raising their voices a little bit and telling us to stay up the ice, and it made us very uncomfortable. I think as an NHL player, when you're playing that same way for 20-some odd years, then all of a sudden somebody comes in and kind of throws a curveball at you, it was a tough adjustment. And I think it was hard for our forwards too, I mean, they had to sacrifice, maybe, some point totals to play this system, right? And I think that's always a challenge when you're dealing with professionals.

The Senators scored the fewest goals amongst playoff teams in the Atlantic Division, with 212. They also allowed more goals (214) than they scored. But they made the playoffs through the front door, winning 44 games and finishing with 98 points, enough to secure home-ice advantage through the first round of the playoffs.

ANDERSON: He had a great message for us. It was ‘Win now, why not?’ I think kind of the whole thought process around the league or whatnot was that we were going to be rebuilding, and doing this, and that. His message was ‘Win now, why not?’

RYAN: It took a minute for the buy-in. I think Guy came in and he's very coordinated, I guess, would be the word. And methodical. And that worked for me. But it didn't necessarily work for everybody right off the bat, and it took some buy-in.

METHOT: It was a very uncommon system to play in the NHL, but it worked so well. And I think after about a month of growing pains, we could start seeing it come to fruition. And I think that's when guys started to really buy in. And I mean, the winning was kind of speaking for itself.

RYAN: Guy won guys over very slowly, and little by little, I think you saw the shift sometime in the year where we completely figured out how to play in that system. Going into that, we were like, well, it can't get worse. We missed the playoffs. Let's rebuild, and take what we've learned, and go from there.

GORD WILSON (1992–): It was a steady growth, I think, and a steady belief. And you know, anything can happen when you do believe, and you've got the horses to carry and execute a system that's being preached. That old expression, ‘You earn your paychecks in regular season and your reputation in playoffs,’ it kicked in. And some players earned a pretty good reputation for what they did in postseason play.

By the playoffs, everyone was on the same page in Ottawa. Bobby Ryan, who had the lowest offensive output of his career that year to that point in his career, wasn’t getting on the scoresheet near the end of the regular season, but he had earned Boucher’s trust for playing the game the right way.

Overall, Ryan was able to rewrite the narrative around what had been a disappointing regular season. He finished ninth in the league in playoff scoring, with 15 points. Only Karlsson had more for the Senators, with 18. He scored two overtime winners, and had three game-winners overall.

RYAN: Guy had trusted us a lot more than we gave him credit for offensively. Guy is not a defensive coach. He's just very stingy about the neutral zone, and that neutral zone won us so many games and kept us alive in so many games. And it took us probably three months to really figure out, okay, we can do things.

WILSON: It's interesting, because [the] mindset changed from the end of the third period to overtime [in games], and I'm thinking specifically of Bobby… the mentality changed. It was attack. Go on the attack. If you have a moment and you see the opportunity, don't be afraid to take the puck to the net. And they had a goal scorer in Bobby Ryan, who had such gifted hands, and instead of worrying about, ‘well, if I turn the puck over, I’ve got to be in this specific spot on the ice,’ he went for it, and it paid off.

RYAN: I think Gord nailed it. Like, we just realized, Guy trusts us south of the blue line. Make your plays, do your thing. But as soon as you come north of the blue line and you're defending, you have to fall back on [the system], And that fallback plan allowed us to create in transition all the time.

Erik Karlsson, at the height of his powers

Erik Karlsson was well past the point in his career where it was a surprise to see him amongst the NHL’s point leaders. At age 26, he was solidly in his prime during the 2016–17 season, with two Norris trophies on his mantle already.

Though Karlsson wasn’t coming off a Norris win — that honour went to Drew Doughty — the previous season was a historic one for the Swede. 

In the 2015–16 season, he appeared in all 82 games for the third-straight year, led the league with 66 assists, and set a new career high with 82 points. He finished tied for fourth in league scoring, becoming the first defenceman since Paul Coffey — some 30 years prior — to finish in the top five.

Karlsson’s dazzling offensive numbers hadn’t led to much team success though, to that point. His teams had won only one playoff series since he arrived in Ottawa.

Boucher deployed Karlsson in different ways than his previous coaches had, and he was more receptive to different ideas. His average time on ice dipped more than two minutes from the previous season, and so too did his offensive totals — albeit, slightly, considering he scored 17 goals and led the Senators with 71 points.

But that season, he also averaged his highest shorthanded time-on-ice per game (about two-and-a-half minutes), the highest mark that he would record as a Senator.

“Boucher has challenged him to take shorter shifts and embrace a regular role on the penalty kill. Improbably, he’s among the NHL leaders with 103 blocked shots. The risk-reward style that once defined him has been curtailed,” wrote Chris Johnston in a midseason feature for Sportsnet.

On March 28, Karlsson blocked a shot during a game against the Philadelphia Flyers. He missed three of the final five regular season games with two hairline fractures in his left heel, which were re-aggravated right before the playoffs. He admitted to having trouble skating at full strength.

That didn’t stop him from recording 18 points that postseason, the sixth-highest total in the league. 

METHOT: We’d argue behind the bench once in a while. Or maybe a forward [would argue] with Erik during a power play when they'd come off, if things weren't clicking. He just he wanted to win, and he wanted to succeed. When I got to Ottawa, he had already won a Norris. I mean, he had a reputation. He was a fantastic defenceman, world-class D-man. I think for him, he just never lacked confidence. And it wasn't an arrogance to him. I think it was just such a competitor. He was kind of goofy, and kind of happy-go-lucky off the ice. And then, like, a switch would go on when games started. 

WILSON: Erik Karlsson was special that year, and playing, basically, with an ankle that probably needed surgery. I can remember sitting with him in Boston in the locker room after a game, and he was completely spent. Ice packs on his foot, and [I] watched him get up, and [he] could barely walk. It was painful to witness, but at the same time, this was a determined athlete. 

METHOT: I can remember him always getting treatment going into practices. I don't believe he practiced once in the postseason; we had to sort of preserve him. He was on high maintenance there for that, and they were freezing him up all the time. And that's some of the stuff that fans don't see, I mean, you don't notice it when the puck drops. You just expect players to play, and when a player is playing through an injury like that and [is] able to hide it that well, I mean, it speaks to Erik's mental toughness. And that was a badass performance that he had.

WILSON: This was a guy who was really, really saying, "I'm the captain of this hockey club, and I'm going to lead this team," and he did, even though he wasn't at 100 per cent. Not even close to 100 per cent. But it's those special players that have the ability to maybe make the unassuming rise to the occasion as well.

METHOT: I just think all around, an absolute competitor, and would lay it out on the line. Played through a ton of injuries and was able to elevate his game beyond belief when those games mattered most. And I think that's what kind of separated him from every other player.

With Game 3 scoreless just over seven minutes into the first period. Karlsson was camped out behind his own net. Five Bruins were pressuring the Senators, and Karlsson seemed to have no options to pass to — at least, if you were watching the television broadcast. 

“What he is, is about to make the play that will begin to stamp one of the greatest individual playoff performances in the history of a 100-year-old league,” wrote The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler in 2020.

Mike Hoffman had flown the Senators’ zone and was streaking down the middle of the ice. Karlsson took a few strides to his right, stickhandled the puck a couple of times, and sent a 120-foot pass through to his left winger. Hoffman collected the pass and scored on a ‘Forsberg’ deke past Tuukka Rask.

METHOT: The alley-oop pass [laughs]. I think I was on the bench. He was set up behind the net, and you see guys do that stuff in practice, but to connect on that pass, and Hoff had to be like, right in the right spot to receive it at center ice, far blue line, and then take it in and finish with that little move, going off to his backhand and tucking it in quietly. That was an incredible goal.

RYAN: I thought he was just shooting it down the ice, to break the tension that we had in our zone for a second there. It wasn't until I saw ‘Hoff’ kind of sneaking behind [the defence], like, looking up the ice. I remember looking up the ice, and I was like, ‘Why is he dumping the puck?’ But ‘whatever.’ And then it lands directly on [Hoffman]’s tape.

WILSON: That pass, from behind his goal line, airborne, perfect height, so nobody could knock it down, on the tape to Mike Hoffman, and the finish on Tuukka Rask, it’s probably the greatest Senators play I have ever seen. And I've seen them all. That probably defines Senators' greatness. Those two players, that one play, and that run that they were on there.

ANDERSON: I think we won the faceoff or whatever it was. It was kind of a stalled play behind the net, and then [Erik] just absolutely launched a 40-foot of air, tape-to-tape, lunar sauce. Not only was that play incredible from Erik to Hoff, but then Hoff going and finishing the way he finished it, that play doesn’t get the recognition it gets without the finish.

METHOT: I think that just spoke to that confidence that the group had, and that all kind of funnels through guys like Erik. You know, it’s Erik Karlsson that we're talking about, who made that beautiful play, and that was just sort of representative of him as a whole and how valuable he was. I mean, our best player in the playoffs for sure. And then, like I said, having ‘Hoff’, a pure sniper being able to finish the way he did, yeah, that was a cool goal.

ANDERSON: I think that's part of what made it magical, that it was both guys made great plays. But yeah, definitely started with Erik and his amazing ability to do what nobody else can think of. I mean, who would have thought in their right mind ‘I'm going to throw a 40-foot sauce over everybody's head?’

RYAN: It was otherworldly, and just like he was all series, right? Like, he took control of the playoffs — not the series, the playoffs — for a period of time there, offensively, defensively. That [play] man, that still pops up on my social media from time to time, and I'll never not watch it in its entirety.

ANDERSON: Erik was a special player. I always felt like I wanted to kind of be a quarterback back there, guiding or communicating, letting guys know what their options were. And you know, even today when I talk to younger goalies and talk about, you know, communication, and helping yourself out, just because you tell them what might be open doesn’t mean they have to take it. They still have to go and make that decision. A lot of times, Erik would see the game much differently than everybody else, and he’d see something that nobody else saw.

The annual playoff heroics of Jean-Gabriel Pageau

You could debate the existence of the ‘clutch’ gene in sports until the cows come home — but for Senators fans who witnessed the heroics of Jean-Gabriel Pageau in both 2013 and in 2017, there isn’t much of a debate.

At the age of 20 in 2012–13, Pageau spent most of his first full professional season with AHL Binghamton before being called up to the Senators for their playoff run. Pageau scored four goals in 10 playoff games that year — including a hat-trick in Game 3 of their first-round series against Montreal. 

Oh yeah, and he also lost a tooth during the game, plus spawned a ‘Pageau, Pageau Pageau Pageau’ chant which would live on for years. 

But that was all just a warmup for the 2017 playoffs. Coming off a regular season in which he had 12 goals and 33 points in 82 games, Pageau was set for another career-defining postseason run.

WILSON: J-G was such a popular figure in Ottawa. He was a fourth-round pick that’s five foot nothing, and a heart the size of a Zamboni. The want and desire to compete was second to none, and that's what's made him have — and has allowed him to [continue to] have — such a successful career.

RYAN: Other than maybe Nick Paul, I don't think I've played with a player that you could plug and play in any place. You could put ‘Pager’ on your first line and be like, ‘You have to produce today,’ and he's going to find a way to give you something. You could put him on your fourth line and be like, just take penalty kill, and run that. Take faceoffs, and crush that, and just shut somebody down. I’ve got so much respect for the way he plays the game. 

METHOT: With Pageau, I’ll say this — and people have said it before — he's just one of those guys that would elevate his game and come up huge. We saw it against Montreal a couple years prior, where he was able to just step up and put in a bunch of goals. Not that it was uncharacteristic for him, like, he's a talented player, he's had a tremendous hockey career, but that was never really expected of him.

RYAN: He plays it hard all the time. I sat next to him for a long period of time in the room, and I just laughed at him because he'd come in and be like, ‘I feel awful today,’ and you're like, ‘Alright. So don't give the puck to ‘Pager’ unless you have to.’ But come 7:30, that guy found a way to turn that crank up nightly, and he's still doing it.

In Game 2 of the second-round playoff series against the Rangers, Pageau became just the 37th player in league history to score four goals in a single playoff game. Along with Joffrey Lupul in 2006 with the Anaheim Ducks, he’s one of only two players in league history to finish off the feat by scoring in overtime. Pageau finished the postseason with eight goals in total, leading all Senators.

WILSON: Four for 44, right? I mean, it was absolutely incredible. I think the players all stood, you know, half the team on one side of the locker room, half the team on the other. They had their sticks, and he walked through the tunnel. They formed a tunnel, and it was Pageau, Pageau, Pageau, Pageau, and yeah, it still rings in my ears here, based on the noise volume in this building.

RYAN: Obviously, the four-goal game gets a lot of credit, but what doesn't is the way that he played the rest of the playoffs. He just pissed players off and then smiled at them. He just found a way to get under their skin, but he scores, you know, when he needs to.

METHOT: He was somehow able to deliver at the best, at the most important possible time that we needed him to. And that's again, another example of a depth guy on our team coming up big, and why we were able to kind of experience all that success was just, you know, that win by committee kind of mentality, and he contributed to that.

A fluid goaltending tandem

By the 2016–17 season, Craig Anderson had established himself as one of the league’s premier goaltenders. From the date of the trade that sent him from Colorado to Ottawa in February 2011 to the beginning of that year, Anderson ranked 10th leaguewide in save percentage, with a .919 figure.

While the Senators had won just one playoff series over that span, it was hardly the fault of Anderson, who sported a .933 save percentage and 2.27 goals-against average in the playoffs over that time period.

But in late October, Anderson’s wife Nicholle was diagnosed with throat cancer, and he would take multiple leaves of absence that season to care for her. Just a couple of days after learning of the diagnosis, Nicholle encouraged him to play against the Edmonton Oilers.

“I travelled through hoops to get to Edmonton from Pennsylvania,” recalled Anderson, who stopped all 37 shots in a 2-0 shutout win on the road.

Anderson was overcome with emotion as his teammates surrounded him after the win. He also earned a large ovation from the Edmonton crowd as he was named the game’s first star, including from Oilers netminder Cam Talbot, who stayed on the bench to applaud his opponent.

In late November, Anderson stepped away from the team for an extended period of time as Nicholle began chemotherapy and radiation treatment in New York.

ANDERSON: I think it was the unknown that was the toughest part. You know, it was uncharted territories for us, and I feel that there's a lot of waiting that goes on between the doctor visit, the diagnosis, then it's like, alright, well, then what happens next? There's a lot of downtime or a lot of waiting time [and] uncertainty.

At the beginning of the month, the Senators had acquired goaltender Mike Condon from the Pittsburgh Penguins in exchange for a fifth-round pick. Condon, a 26-year-old undrafted Princeton graduate, had appeared in 55 games during his rookie campaign the season earlier with the Montreal Canadiens, taking on a starter’s role after Carey Price suffered a season-ending knee injury.

He made his Senators debut the day after the trade, stopping all 27 shots sent his way by the Vancouver Canucks in a 1-0 win. From Dec. 1 to Feb. 4, Condon set a Senators franchise record by starting 27 consecutive games.

METHOT: There were some nights where [Condon] was running on fumes. I can remember that specifically, him just looking dog tired, kind of vaguely similar in a way to the Hamburglar situation, where your goalie's just kind of plowing through it, and it's a tough position, the hardest position to play on a team. And I think he handled it very well. He was very composed, never got too high or too low, I remember that about him. Always pretty level-headed, and again, a big piece of the puzzle for that regular season success that we had.

On Jan. 30, after more than two months away from the team, Anderson returned to Ottawa. After a few practices, he was announced as the team’s starter by Boucher only two hours before a 1 p.m. afternoon start against the Islanders on Feb. 11.

“This is like a cold-water pool. You look at it, and you want to get in, and it’s cold, and the longer you wait, it’s still going to be cold when you get in. I think it’s, jump in and swim, and you’ll remind yourself that you know how to swim pretty good, so I think that’s what it is for Craig,” said Boucher that morning.

“And expectations are not that he’s coming in to save us and get us a shutout. Expectations right now are, be yourself. It’s great to have him back, it’s exciting, and what’s going to happen is going to happen. There’s a process, and hopefully things work out well for him right off the bat.”

ANDERSON: I don’t remember that game as much as the Edmonton game… I think that was kind of the big one. I just know I remember skating in Jersey area. Our goalie coach came down, my agent came in, and we were literally just doing some basic goalie movements for two weeks, leading up to trying to get back, knowing the treatments were coming to an end.

Anderson exceeded Boucher’s expectations, delivering the Senators an emotional 33-save shutout. It was his second shutout of the year when returning from an absence to care for Nicholle.

Boucher stood smiling on the bench after that win, waiting to catch Anderson’s eye and give him a thumbs up. He headed down the tunnel and waited for Anderson to come off the ice so he could pat his goaltender on the back.

RYAN: He's just one of the most wholesome dudes I've ever met. Like good family guy, I could talk him about all day, but really… Andy was the backbone of that team, right? Like he held things together.

METHOT: Craig Anderson was instrumental. Without a goaltender, I mean, things can go pretty sideways pretty quickly, right? And we were very fortunate to have Craig Anderson there, and everything that he had gone through during that season with Nicholle and her cancer bout, and then him having to leave the team briefly, and then coming back and helping us, and I just I can't commend him enough for that. And then to come back and play the way he did — and of course, there's more to life than just hockey — But when he was there with us, and he got the blessing from Nicholle, having him back there… he was almost like having another voice back there.

RYAN: We just always hit it off. We thought the game a lot alike, and Andy is one of the few goalies that I've played with that really could tell you what every position is doing in the system. A lot of goalies are just like, I got the puck, I got the crease — you guys get the rest. Andy will yell at you when you're behind the net that you're in the wrong place, and you're like, [bleep]. Alright, Andy, I guess I'll go back to my point now.

METHOT: A lot of goalies are quiet. Craig was not one of those goalies. He would communicate. He would let us know where pressure was coming from. He was confident with the puck. He wasn't always the best with the puck — he wasn't like Marty Brodeur with the puck — but he could still make a nice play and a nice outlet pass, and I think that's what made him so effective. 

ANDERSON: For the guy that’s trying to break out [who isn’t] Erik — being able to communicate, tell him what’s available, I think that’s probably what Marc’s referring to is that he always knew that he had another set of eyes looking out for him and making sure he didn’t get killed back there going for pucks.

The aftermath of the Kunitz goal

All good things have to come to an end. After a playoff run that stretched six weeks, deep into May, it was time for the Senators to hang up their skates for the season after Chris Kunitz fluttered a shot over Craig Anderson’s blocker in double overtime of Game 7.

METHOT: That one moment that strikes me is the OT goal that we gave up in that double overtime. It haunts me. It's all I think about. I'll be playing online, I'll be playing like, NHL 27 with my kids now, and maybe there's a Stanley Cup game or something. And it always brings me right back to that moment and how we were one goal away from playing Nashville, which I think could have gone either way. And easy to say that now. Obviously, we didn't earn that spot. Pittsburgh did. But it's tough. 

RYAN: Those guys just found a way. Those guys answer the bell when they’re called upon. That’s why they’re all three-time Stanley Cup champions, and back-to-back in that year, right? It was a hell of a hockey series, though, and we felt like anything could happen with the way that we played and Andy was playing. It really sucks that we lost on like, a flutter shot, that didn't really go where it was intended to go. Because Andy was in [the right spot], it just fluttered over him, and that part sucked. You'd rather lose on a nice goal, right?

METHOT: I think if anything, it's taught me, especially in that moment, like, you really only get sometimes one crack at it. And that was our opportunity. It didn't work out in our favor, but very proud of the effort we had as a group, and I still have great relationships with some of those guys. It's hard to keep up with everybody, but you build a lot of meaningful relationships and bonds with guys when you go through it like that with them. Very grateful that I had that opportunity.

RYAN: I think the lasting impact is the bond you share from it… the bond, man. The run was so much fun. I don't think I ever had more fun playing hockey — maybe the Olympics, but that's just a short two-week thing. It's the impact that it had on friendships, and the way that I still communicate with [Methot] and [Anderson], mostly, on those things. I'll get a message from one of the guys, a DM of a clip from those playoffs every now and again, and just the way that we can all kind of circle back to that moment in time 10 years later is pretty incredible.

ANDERSON: I think the biggest thing for us was playing for something, and I think there was a lot to play for that year. And that creates that bond of guys coming together because you have a common goal, not only just to win, but to do it for the guy next to you, do it for the guy that's going through whatever he's going through. And if you talk around the league, teams that have won in the past or gone deep, the one thing that they always talk about is the camaraderie, the common goal, how they want to play for each other. And that year was kind of the culmination of multiple angles coming together in one.

METHOT: Comparing that to like, a year where maybe you don't make the playoffs, you lose touch with those guys immediately. That's just the way it is. But guys that you go to battle with and experience those highs and those lows deep into the playoffs, you know, I can pick it up with any of those guys, and we could just kick it. And maybe I haven't spoken to them in a couple years, it wouldn't be awkward. It'd be cool to be able to catch up with them.

ANDERSON: I just think the camaraderie of the guys we had, I think it was a kind of an emotional ride all season long, and that kind of continued on, kind of created that bond for us for the run. There was a lot of big moments for us there that kind of brought us together.

RYAN: Even [though], ultimately, we fell short, right? But the memories that it created on the ice, off the ice, playing poker with the guys until two o'clock in the morning after games because none of us could sleep, and being in the team room. Like, all those things that you kind of neglect day-to-day when you're in it, you think back on. And that's what it comes down to.

ANDERSON: This city wants to get behind a winner. They want to get behind a team that plays hard. And I think we were the type of team that found a way to get a win. I don’t think we were a high-scoring team that year, but the way we played, we played with heart, we played with grit, and we played with passion. And our fans really respected that, and they came out and supported us tenfold.

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