News

The coach reached back to a time before any of his players were born in one final, desperate effort to waken the team before it was too late.

For inspiration, Bryan Murray called on Team Canada 1972. They, too, had been in as seemingly hopeless a situation as Murray's Ottawa Senators were up against the Anaheim Ducks. Team Canada had gone to Moscow trailing the Soviet Union badly in the eight-game Summit Series but had magically staged comeback after comeback until, as Canadians of a certain age will remember, Foster Hewitt's voice crackled across the ocean: "Here's another shot! Right in front! They score! Henderson has scored for Canada!"

But it turned out to be much too long a stretch — of any kind — between Sept. 28, 1972, and June 6, 2007.

Murray had no Phil Esposito around to make that inspirational speech as Team Canada left the Vancouver ice, tail between legs, following yet another loss.

All Murray had was team captain Daniel Alfredsson to state the obvious: "I think we just gotta go out there and get the job done."

Alfredsson would get his job done for the most part — scoring twice this final night of the year, one of them short-handed.

They would, unfortunately, be the only two goals Ottawa would score.

And when Anaheim scored again almost immediately after Alfredsson's short-handed marker, it was the end, the captain said, of any momentum the Senators might have used to come back.

Murray had no Paul Henderson, then considered a fringe player, to score the winning goal, no Bobby Clarke to go out and deliberately take out the other team's best player as Clarke had done in Moscow to Valeri Kharlamov.

And, most important of all, Murray had no Ken Dryden, no Tony Esposito, to stop the pucks when stops were necessary.

Instead, he had Ray Emery who, on this final night of a remarkable year, could stop nothing.

He let in a weak goal when Andy McDonald deflected a shot along the ice at the end of an early Ducks' 5-on-3 power play.

He let in a stunningly weak backhand when Rob Niedermayer flew up the ice on a partial breakaway.

And, in a moment that may live forever in Ottawa fans' haunted memories, he let in a goal that came from defenceman Chris Phillips — Ottawa's most sturdy player this spring — coming out from behind the net, losing the puck in Emery's skates and having Emery accidentally push the puck into his own net.

"Now I know how Steve Smith felt," a dejected Phillips said, referring to a famous "own goal" by the Edmonton Oilers during a 1986 playoff game when Smith scored on his own net against the Calgary Flames.

Phillips' Senators, having won three series 4-1, finished a fourth 4-1, but this time, the other team had the four, and the Stanley Cup that goes along with it.

Murray, at wit's end over his team's sudden sputtering in the final, turned to every trick he could think of. He juggled his lines to the point where it seemed he might have dropped his players' cards on the floor and played pickup, even splitting up his regular-season stars, Dany Heatley and Jason Spezza for the first time in memory.

Spezza could have tied the game early in the first when he had an open net, but, in a flashing moment of Duck luck, the shaft of the stick of Anaheim defenceman François Beauchemin appeared to knock the shot harmlessly away.

Beauchemin later put the game out of reach with a long point shot that ticked in and put Anaheim ahead by two goals going into the final period.

The scoring, however, was not over — nor were the Senators' faux pas in their own end.

Emery blew a simple clearing pass that ended up as yet another Anaheim goal as Travis Moen tipped in a harmless-looking point shot to make it 5-2 — the game well out of reach.

It was not the way Ottawa wanted to end its season. And certainly not the way Emery wanted to put an end to what had been an otherwise fine first season as Ottawa's No. 1 goaltender.

There remained but one outside chance for Ottawa — a penalty shot by Antoine Vermette. But on a night when nothing went right, neither did this.

It seemed oddly fateful that Alfredsson himself would be involved in the final insult, sending a bad pass that ended up a Corey Perry goal to close the game 6-2.

It was a remarkable victory for the Ducks, most notably for veteran Teemu Selanne, playing in his first final, and for Scott Niedermayer, winner of the Conn Smythe Trophy as the playoff MVP.

It was a sad ending to the year for the Senators. After years of playoff failure, the Senators had finally shaken off the early defeats to reach the final of the Stanley Cup.

"To get within arm's reach of it," said Phillips, searching for words, "but just can't get a hold of it."

"It's the worst feeling you can ever feel as a hockey player," added a red-eyed Mike Comrie.

"It hurts a lot."