Silver Nuggets: Race for Eighth, Clinch Watch, Ti4T, plus playoff hockey in Ottawa?

by Peter Raaymakers on Mar 27, 2009 11:48 AM EDT Comment 0 comments

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The Race for Eighth doesn't look very pretty for the Senators, as most fans have long realized. The five-game winning streak, coupled with losses from the teams ahead of Ottawa, made things interesting for a while, but looking at the standings, the games remaining, and the current streaks demonstrate that it's just about done for the Senators. Just about officially done; according to SportsClubStats, Ottawa's playoff shot is back down to one in a thousand (0.114 per cent).

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With the playoffs all but out of the picture, here's a look at the Ti4T (Tank it for [John] Tavares) watch, as "sampled" from Mile High Hockey:

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As you can see, fans of the Colorado Avalanche (like those from MHH) must have higher hopes for the Ti4T race, but the Islanders are still the kings of the tank. In fact, there's no way Ottawa's falling to 30th, but technically the Sens could fall as low as 29th if they tanked. Which I don't see happening, so Ottawa will likely get a 5-10 pick in the entry draft.

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But does that mean there won't be hockey playoffs in Ottawa? Not at all! At the moment, we've got the OHL's Ottawa 67s in the final playoff run of the legendary Brian Kilrea. Last night the 67s tied up their series with the Niagara Ice Dogs at to, meaning that there will be at least one more OHL playoff game in Ottawa (March 30 @ 7 p.m. at the Civic Centre), and possibly a game seven the following day, plus any future rounds that may happen.

But there's also news that, due to scheduling conflicts (check out Sharp on the Sens for more on the "challenges") in a whole whack of AHL arenas, there are prelimisary discussions about the possibility of the Binghamton Senators bringing some of their playoff games to Ottawa. The Ottawa Citizen has reports that suggest it's possible, but still depends on a lot of things--including events at the Scotiabank Place and 67s games.

I, for one, would love to see some B-Sens games in Ottawa. I'd really like to see the Sens prospects first-hand, and take in some playoff action while I'm at it. If it happens, it happens.