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The only thing they have in common is that they both insist, rather ludicrously, that they are the one looking up.

The Pittsburgh Penguins, who weren't expected to make the playoffs, say they're the underdogs.

The Ottawa Senators, of whom not much is expected in the playoffs, say they're the underdogs.

"You can't really pick an underdog in this series," Senators forward Mike Fisher said at the end of the Wednesday morning skate.

But you can, most assuredly, tell one team from the other.

In the Ottawa dressing room, it is forbidden to step on the huge team logo that dominates the centre of the floor. Staff members are assigned to keep wandering media types from stepping on the sacred symbol.

In the Pittsburgh dressing room, the Penguins logo is also dead centre of the carpet, but is tromped on by everyone, players and media, without the slightest care.

Here, staff members are assigned to keep wandering media types from intruding on Sidney Crosby's air space as the 19-year-old NHL scoring champ removes his equipment and dresses for a quick press conference.

Crosby says he didn't "expect" to be here in the 2007 Stanley Cup playoffs. His coach, Michel Therrien, says the young Penguins "surprised" everyone by making the post-season - including the coaching staff.

The Penguins are here, Therrien says, to "have fun."

It is not an impression you take away from the Ottawa dressing room. They are here to prove a point.

The newspapers and talk shows are all about past failure and current expectations - which very often involve failure again. The coach, Bryan Murray, bristles understandably when the local media refers to the team as "choking dogs."

The Ottawa Citizen's special playoff package gives two pages over to detailing the year-by-year disappointments of the Senators in the playoffs - invariably at the top of their games during the regular season, too often at the very bottom when it has mattered most.

No year was harder to accept than last season, when they were the clear favourites to finally win it all - only to collapse against the Buffalo Sabres.

It was last spring that superstition dictated that no one set foot on the logo in the centre of the dressing room carpet.

Given what happened, you'd think they'd be asking visitors to stomp on it both going in and going out.

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