KANATA, Ont. — Shenanigans?
The surfacing of a grainy video and calls to the league?
A juicy plot twist to what has been a rather lopsided Battle of Ontario?
Or, perhaps — more realistically — Warmupgate in the nation’s capital is just a big, fat, juicy nothingburger.
When grilled at the Canadian Tire Centre podium Friday morning about Ottawa Senators agitator Nick Cousins flipping a puck at Anthony Stolarz’s net in the warmup prior to Game 3, head coach Travis Green jokingly pled the fifth.
“Well,” Green replied. “It’s an active investigation. I don’t know if I can comment.”
When the laughter settled, Green sloughed off all this hullabaloo about nothing.
“Cousins and Stolarz have played together. I dunno. He’s probably trying to either laugh at him or make a joke or get him off his game. Is what it is,” said Green, who did speak with his player about the incident.
Cousins reminded his coach that he and former Florida Panthers teammate Stolarz go back; their names are engraved in the same block on the Stanley Cup.
“Game within a game,” Green said. “Happens a lot more than you think.”
“I don’t think it’s a get-in-your-head type thing,” Jake Sanderson added.
Cousins does have a get-in-your-kitchen reputation, though.
“That’s always been his game. I mean, he brings energy for our group, and he’s going to battle out there, and he’s going to leave it out there,” Thomas Chabot says. “That’s part of playoff hockey. Every year, every series, there’s guys like that. And he’s big for us as a group.”
Any “punishment” from the NHL’s department of hockey operations — which frowns upon any warmup tomfoolery between clubs, no matter how benign — will amount to nothing more than a stern talking to.
Knock it off.
Same goes for St. Louis backup goalie Joel Hofer’s post-warmup standoff with Winnipeg star Mark Scheifele in Game 1 of their first-round series.
“We’re gonna have to bring back HD for the warmup, too,” quipped Ottawa’s David Perron. “There was only 10 games in HD when I started my career. It sounds like we need to update quality of video and warmups, too.”
(P.S. Before every game this series, Chabot has also been firing a puck at the Maple Leafs empty net at the very end of warmups — but long after Stolarz has left. That’s a superstition the defenceman started this season. “We won a couple games in a row,” Chabot says. “So then I just went along with it and just kept it rolling.” And if he misses the empty net? “Pisses me off a little bit.”)
All this handwringing over a lightly shot puck between friendly rivals is actually good for the Senators.
For it has distracted at least some attention from the fact they are trailing the series 3-0 and could well get swept in the span of a week.
One of the main reasons the underdog is on the brink of elimination is Stolarz, who has prevented Sens shooters from reaching the magic number of three goals every night.
He’s in their heads. They’re firing wide, often from unfavourable angles.
Green has spoken at length with his players about shot selection, hitting the target, and creating more screen time.
“He’s playing some good hockey,” Chabot says of Stolarz. “He’s making some big saves at big moments.
“You’re gonna have to put a lot of traffic in front of him and get some greasy rebounds, greasy goals, and cut his eyes out. Be in front of him and not let him see the shots coming in.”
Even if they’re during warmup.
