NEW YORK - As much as Guy Boucher believes that “rest is a weapon,” he has witnessed the even greater value of true grit at this time of the hockey season.
It has almost always separated the men from the boys in the NHL playoffs.
True grit is what the Senators so clearly lacked in their early playoff years — most noticeably in the annual Battle of Ontario losses to the Toronto Maple Leafs — and it was also obviously missing from Ottawa’s arsenal in Games 3 and 4 at Madison Square Garden last week, which is why Ryan Dzingel was replaced by Chris Neil for Game 5.