Matthew Tkachuk, Courtesy ESPN.com

Panthers’ identity has outcasts dying to grow and bare teeth

 “There is a creature alive today who has survived millions of years of evolution, without change, without logic, it lives to kill. A mindless eating machine, it will attack, it will devour. Anything. It is as if God created the Devil and gave him . . . jaws.”   This

Hey Tampa, this wasn’t supposed to happen

 Cap-shmap. So here we are in the era of the great equalizer, aka the National Hockey League salary cap. In a very great way, the salary cap was intended more for restriction than anything else. To be more precise – restrictive to any kind of dynasty. In no way whatsoever

The uncatchable Colorado Avalanche

 “There is a creature alive today . . . Without logic. It lives to kill; a mindless eating machine. It will attack. And devour. Anything. It is if God created the Devil and gave him . . . jaws.” This is not a film from 1975. This is a hockey

Hockey rolls on!

 Been there, done that must count for a lot given the lack of love the New York Rangers are getting heading into the Eastern Conference final. Across the board, hockey prognosticators are throwing their affection at the two-time Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning. At NHL.com, some of the best

A week of searching in vain for a higher ‘power’

 “You got the power To keep my fire a-burnin' You got the power To keep my wheels a-turnin'” – War A hit from 1982 never felt so right in the 2020s. To many, though, the song doesn’t conjure much of a smile as Ottawa and the region’s mass power outage

Leafs’ killer instinct not to be found

 Here it is Ottawa, your absolute favourite subject . . . hello there, Toronto Maple Leafs. I know what you’re thinking: ‘C’mon man, there’s more than one Canadian team in the playoffs. I mean, c’mon!’ Agreed. But consider the bare facts (or Barefax depending on your positioning on certain matters):

NHL Playoffs: A veritable alphabet soup

 Photo courtesy of NHLI via Getty Images Here we go. It’s the A, B, Z’s (American pronunciation for rhyming purposes please) of the Stanley Cup playoffs, with a few Ottawa references thrown in. (This IS an Ottawa-based magazine after all, right?). So, strap on your ‘well, what a poetic thought’ hat

Onward to Boston!

 SENATORS: A Week in Review is a weekly column looking back at the week in Ottawa Senators hockey written by OLMSports Dave Gross. Feature photo by NHLI via Getty Images Hockey purists relish the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. There's a kind of whirling dervish element to the games - it is