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Don't blame the goalie Sens refuse to point the finger at Barrasso
Posted: Monday April 17, 2000 02:16 AM
By Steve Buffery, Toronto Sun The Ottawa Senators have not soured on goaltender Tom Barrasso, even though he hardly appears to be the missing ingredient they need to cook up some playoff wins. "He can only do so much," Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson said following his team's 5-1 loss to the Maple Leafs last night. "Tommy saved us three or four times (early)." "There comes a time when the guys in front have to give him a little more help," defenceman Grant Ledyard added. "He can't score goals from back there," forward Shawn McEachern said. All very true. The Senators have scored one goal in the first two games of the Eastern Conference quarter-final. Still, the moody Barrasso has not been the saviour Ottawa had hoped for. The Leafs' second goal last night, a wrist shot by Mats Sundin from just inside the blueline, was very stoppable. At that point, the normally reserved Air Canada Centre fans begin to chant "Barrasso! Barrasso!" And it won't help Barrasso's confidence that the man the Senators swapped to get him -- Ron Tugnutt -- has won two playoff games for Pittsburgh and has given up only one goal. But other than Sundin's goal, the Boston native looked as if he was swarmed at times by the Leafs. For his part, Barrasso, who has a love/hate relationship with the media -- he just loves to hate them -- took the high road when asked whether he felt abandoned at times. "No. When we got down, we started to press and when you press you're going to give up a few odd-man rushes," he said. "That's part of the game. We needed to try to put some pressure on them to develop some offence and we did. That's fine. "Whatever you need to do to win." The Senators, who have been described in previous seasons as "Team Heartless" in the playoffs, realize that winning four games now is a very formidable task and essentially challenged themselves after last night's loss to find an inner reserve of character and drive. "We're going to find out what kind of character we have I guess," Alfredsson said. "We have nothing to lose. We've got to go out and play solid for 60 minutes. Not 20, not 40." "We have to match their intensity. They worked very hard. We worked hard at times, but not all the time. And that's what's necessary," Barrasso added. "We have it in the room. It's a question of bringing it to the ice and putting it in the game. "It's up to everybody. It's not going to be one individual that's going to do any miracle or faith healing here," he said. "It's going to be people pulling themselves up by the bootstraps and getting it done." Barrasso was asked whether his new team has it in them to do that. "We'll find out, won't we," he said.
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