Over

In the end, the Ducks were too much. Too much size, too much speed, too much forecheck, too much goalie equipment (and talent, I'll give Giguere that much), too much on defense. Just too much for the Sens to handle.

I think that despite some of the close scores that Game 5 was more reflective of the series. (I'm glad I wasn't in a position to watch the game. I think I would have vomitted upon seeing the Phillips goal.) Anaheim dominated Ottawa pretty thoroughly in three of the five games, yet despite that, Ottawa could have stolen Game 2 and should have taken Game 4. Congratulations to the Ducks. You broke my Sens loving heart you bastards, but I admit, you deserve it.

Where to go from here is an interesting question for Ottawa. It's a decent core, but the Finals exposed flaws that were there for a while.
- After the big line things get dicey and while it's clear that Alfredsson can do some damage when he's away from Heatley and Spezza, Murray never found a complimentary piece for those two among the other forwards.
- Redden and Meszaros were terrible, both in general and together, and while Meszaros cann chalk it up to being 21 and in his second season, Redden has no such luxury. He's soft and not so swift afoot these days.
- There were too many passengers on board, including Little Mikey Comrie and Peter Schaefer. Comrie is an unrestricted free agent and I'm hoping Muckler thanks him for this contribution and let's him ride off into the sunset, maybe back to Phoenix. We're stuck with Schaefer.
- Martin Gerber is the third highest paid Senator (or something similarly silly).
- Also, UFA's this summer, Dean McAmmond and Tom Preissing. Before getting too close to the too tall Chris Pronger I would have started a "Bring back Deaner" website, but now you have to wait and see how his head is doing. I like Preissing a lot. Don't know if they can afford him considering what's committed to Gerber, Alfie, Spezza, Redden, Corvo, etc and the need to have money in the near future for Heatley and Emery.

So an off-season of questions for the Sens as they try to prepare to get back to the precipice of greatness. I guess everybody gets to rest up and concentrate on baseball now. Congratulations again to Anaheim, even though I hate almost all of your players now...at the end of the day it was still worth buying the Alfredsson jersey.