Torey Krug has been a standout on the Bruins’ youthful blue line during the playoffs. (Rich Graessle/Icon SMI)

By Allan Muir

An annotated guide to this morning’s must-read hockey stories:

• The Ottawa Senators never had a chance in Game 5. Coach Paul MacLean summed it up perfectly after the loss: “I hope they don’t bill us for the clinic.”

• There was a storybook quality to Ottawa’s season, but there was no happy ending for the Senators.

• Ottawa talked a good game of desperation but it didn’t show up on the ice.

• The new-look Matt Cooke not only made it through this series intact but he made an impact on the score sheet.

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James Neal (center) scored a hat trick in the Penguins’ 6-2 Game 5 win. (Joe Sargent/Getty Images)

By Sarah Kwak

When the Senators had a parade of players hauled on to the injured reserve, they were expected to sink. When they dropped five in a row in early April, people thought their postseason hopes were gone. And yet Ottawa found ways to win games, make it to the playoffs, make it past the first round.

Well, after a season of exceeding expectations and proving doubters wrong, Ottawa finally reached the end of its line; after 58 games, the Senators just could not muster any more of their magic this year, and their surprisingly excellent season ended Friday night as they fell to Pittsburgh, 6-2, in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Captain Daniel Alfredsson’s remarks after Game 4 — he had intimated that the end was imminent for his team, that he didn’t think it was likely his Senators could come back — turned out to be spot on. “With their depth and power play right now, you know, it doesn’t look too good,” Alfredsson said.

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Does it matter that Tuukka Rask was in net during Boston’s epic 2010 collapse? (Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)

By Sarah Kwak

It’s a well-worn cliché of playoff hockey: The fourth win is always the toughest. And on Thursday night, Boston played into the old adage again, letting the Rangers keep a modicum of hope in their Eastern Conference semifinal series, which now stands at 3-1. Friday, Pittsburgh, holding a 3-1 series lead over Ottawa, got its first chance to advance to its first East final since 2009. But given the Penguins’ recent history of elimination games on home ice — they are 1-6 since Dan Bylsma took over in ’09 — Friday’s game presented an element of challenge.

Elimination games often do. Just ask the Bruins, the Canucks, the Sharks. During the last three years, they have each allowed an opponent to climb back from a 0-3 series deficit to push a Game 7. The 2010 Flyers famously pulled off the full comeback against Boston, which haunted the Bruins until they won the Cup a year later. Since 2010, the NHL has seen only three more occurrences of series sweeps than it’s seen 0-3 comebacks. So really, are elimination games actually more difficult?

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By Allan Muir

We know this much about the Ottawa Senators. Placed on a slab and fitted for a toe tag early this season after Jason Spezza, Craig Anderson and Erik Karlsson were dispatched to the long-term IR, this team hopped off and danced a jig on its own grave just to prove everyone wrong. So maybe writing the Sens’ obituary before they have a chance to play Game 5 in Pittsburgh tonight is a bit foolish.

Granted, Daniel Alfredsson, the team’s captain, doesn’t like Ottawa’s long-term chances for survival, but that doesn’t mean they won’t live to fight at least one more day.

“If you ask anyone and they looked at our series, I don’t think there’s too many people who would have pick us right now. That’s what I meant,” Alfredsson said by way of explaining his post-Game 4 quote that the Sens probably wouldn’t win the series. “We have an opportunity and we’re still in the playoffs. We have always responded when we were up against the wall and I expect us to do the same thing [in Game 5] and give ourselves a chance to win a game and come back [to Ottawa for Game 6].”

GAME 4: Muir’s take | Recap | Boxscore | Highlights | Complete postseason schedule

Whether they come into the contest as never-say-die warriors, or with the easy calm of a team that has nothing to lose, the Senators still face long odds of extending the series against a Pittsburgh squad that proved it could keep its foot on the gas in Wednesday’s 7-3 thumping.

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It’s all suddenly gone very wrong for Joel Quenneville and his Blackhawks. (Dave Reginek/NHLI via Getty Images)

By John Rolfe

An annotated guide to this morning’s must-read hockey stories:

• Eric Duhatschek points out that those surprising Red Wings are rudely reminding the Blackhawks that a stellar regular season means nothing once you’re in the playoffs.

• The more Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville mixes and matches and juggles and tinkers, the more out of synch his team becomes.

• George Malik on one of Detroit’s subtle x-factors in the series.

• Mired in a 26-game scoring slump, the Kings’ Anze Kopitar did what big game players do, writes Helene Elliott.

• Think the Kings-Sharks series will go seven? The Sharks sure hope so.

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Jonathan Quick’s 28 saves blunted a surge by the Sharks, who had won the last two games. (Getty Images)

By Adrian Dater

The Los Angeles Kings are one win away from their second straight Western Conference finals appearance, which puts them in striking distance of doing what they say can’t be done in this age of NHL parity: win back-to-back Stanley Cups.

Not since Detroit in 1997 and 1998 has a team repeated the feat, but the Kings are now nine wins away.

In Game 5’s 3-0 victory over the San Jose Sharks at the Staples Center on Thursday night, goaltender Jonathan Quick kept alive his bid to accomplish something that has only been done twice in the history of the sport: win two straight Conn Smythe trophies (goalie Bernie Parent of the Flyers in 1974 and ’75, and Penguins great Mario Lemieux in 1991 and ’92 are the two repeat postseason MVPs).

Quick saved his best for last: a glove-hand robbery of Joe Pavelski with 39.5 seconds left in regulation, a ridiculous stop that helped earn him an honor as the game’s No. 1 star.

Anze Kopitar, who scored the game-winner, summed up the game to the NBC Sports Network as “Probably our best game of the playoffs so far. We all realize they have lots of players who can make good plays, but when you can limit their time and space it makes it hard for them.”

Other observations from Game 5:

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Detroit goalie Jimmy Howard made 28 saves in the Red Wings’ shutout win in Game 4. (Steven King/Icon SMI)

By Allan Muir

When Jonathan Toews watches the tape of Chicago’s 2-0 Game 4 loss in Detroit, he should pay close attention to the play of his nemesis Henrik Zetterberg and of Zetterberg’s Red Wings teammate, Pavel Datsyuk.

He’ll see the two stars were subjected to a series of hooks, jabs, slashes and all manner of uncalled cheap shots, just as Toews was. He might also notice that, despite that duress, they rarely lost their cool.

And really, that was the difference tonight and in the previous two games that have seen the Wings wrestle control of this series from the Stanley Cup favorites. While Toews and the Hawks allowed their frustration to get the best of them over and over again, the Red Wings simply gritted their teeth, put their heads down and kept their focus.

That’s how the Wings have earned a 3-1 series lead that’s surprising only to those who haven’t watched them in action. Yesterday, Pierre McGuire offered some insight on the series to SI.com’s Stu Hackel, which you can read here. And it’s why the Stanley Cup favorites are on the ropes and facing elimination in Game 5 on Saturday.

Here are some thoughts and observations from tonight’s action:

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By Brian Cazeneuve

NEW YORK — Down three games to none, the New York Rangers kept their season alive with a fair amount of stick-to-it-iveness, and a couple of gifts from their guests, coming from behind twice in regulation and getting the winning goal in overtime to defeat the Boston Bruins, 4-3, and gain a toe-hold in their playoff series. Some thoughts on a back-and-forth Game 4:

• Rangers coach John Tortorella decided it was finally time to sit his struggling veteran center, Brad Richards. For sure, Richards is a Tortorella favorite. The two go back to Tampa Bay’s Stanley Cup victory in 2004. Though Richards, a high-priced free agent, has played on New York’s first line for most of his tenure with the Rangers, he has been seeing fewer and fewer minutes as the playoffs have progressed. Tortorella also benched tough guy Arron Asham. With defenseman Anton Stralman out with an injury, New York added forwards Kris Newbury and Michael Haley and veteran defenseman Roman Hamrlik to the lineup for their first games of the series.

• If the Bruins had a right to ease off the gas after taking a 3-0 series lead, they didn’t cash in their slow-motion card. With the crowd at Madison Square Garden trying to fire up the Rangers, Boston outshot New York, 9-2, during the first ten minutes.

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Patrick Roy was officially unveiled as the new coach of the Colorado Avalanche. (Richard Wolowicz/Getty Images)

By Allan Muir

Looks like Stephane Roy knew what he was talking about after all.

His brother, Hall of Famer Patrick Roy, finally was named as the new head coach of the Colorado Avalanche after days of speculation.

It’s a hiring that should energize a disaffected fan base, and stabilize a position that has seen five changes in the past 10 years.

But Roy faces a tall challenge, and not just the obvious task of making a winner out of a roster that, for the moment, is overly reliant on young talent and lacks the depth to match up with the top teams in the Western Conference.

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Sidney Crosby and his merry Penguins are rolling home in the proverbial driver’s seat. (NHLI via Getty Images)

By Allan Muir

An annotated guide to this morning’s must-read hockey stories:

• After an atrocious first period, the Pittsburgh Penguins finally decided to unsheathe their claws. About time, too, according to Dejan Kovacevic.

• James Neal and Jarome Iginla found their inner beasts, scoring a pair of goals each in Pittsburgh’s win.

• Daniel Alfredsson and the Ottawa Senators were hit hard by the reality of their situation after that 7-3 blowout. Reality or not, it’s stunning to hear these words coming from the captain.

• After watching everything fall apart so abruptly after a promising start, Eric Duhatschek wonders if the Senators have checked out of the series.

• The Senators now face the ultimate challenge. The view from Ottawa suggests they’re not quite up to it.

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