bout it. There's new energy, people go in with a new mindset, you get to have a new start to everything, like we did this season."The one place the Canadiens are getting tons of respect is from their opponents. The Senators have relished the underdog role they find themselves in,LeBron 10 EXT Hazelnut, even if so many people consider them favorites. Coach Paul MacLean has gone to great lengths to emphasize that Montreal is the favored team, perhaps in an attempt to apply some additional pressure to the Canadiens. But he said that is not the case."I try to be a realist as opposed to being an underdog or an overdog," MacLean said. "Right now, we're the seventh seed. That's what we are. I don't try to be something I'm not, so why would our team try to be something we're not? We're the seventh seed, so we are the underdog. Would I much rather be the first seed? Absolutely. I'd love to have 100 points, but we're not at that point yet with our team."One thing the varied predictions for this series reveal is that it should be a hard-fought matchup,Nike Free Run Orange, and that it likely will be very close. In fact, if you look at the two teams, there are numerous similarities.Each has an elite offensive defenseman (Montreal's P.K. Subban, Ottawa's Erik Karlsson), each has a veteran offensive defenseman (Montreal's Andrei Markov, Ottawa's Sergei Gonchar), they each have a couple of exciting rookie forwards (the Canadiens' Brendan Gallagher and Alex Galchenyuk, the Senators' Jakob Silfverberg and Mika Zibanejad) and they each have a tough guy who can dictate the feel of a game (Brandon Prust for the Canadiens, Chris Neil for the Senators).That might be why the Canadiens are aware they are facing a difficult opponent, and have shown as much respect for the Senators as Ottawa has shown them."We don't really care too much about what they say about us," Gallagher said. "We know what we've done all year, we know the type of team we are and we know we can be a very good team. We can beat any team in this League if we're playing the right way. That said, Ottawa's a very good team. They do a lot of things well,Nike Air Max 2013 Blue, they're well-coached, they get good goaltending and they don't make too many mistakes. It's going to be a good series,Air Jordan 11 Space Jams Black Red, it's going to be tight and it's going to be fun to be a part of."
MONTREAL -- Teams wishing to slow the balanced, potent attack of the Montreal Canadiens need to be able to skate with their speedy forwards and lay the body on them if they're ever able to catch up to them.Perhaps no team in the Eastern Conference has the ability to do that as well as the Canadiens' first-round opponents in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Ottawa Senators.Erik Karlsson's near-miraculous return from injury has garnered most of the attention in Ottawa, but the early return of Jared Cowen from hip surgery gives the Senators a defense that is big, mobile and nasty -- a group that could be the kryptonite to the Canadiens' quickness.With 6-foot-5, 230-pound Cowen added to a group that already included Marc Methot (6-3, 231), Chris Phi