Ottawa Senators: Road-Trip Bonding and Such...

The cliches are out in full force in the utopian, never-never land that is the Ottawa Senators' organization.

"I think it'd be good maybe just to get away and kind of come together as a team," centre Mike Fisher said. "Sometimes a good road trip will do that."

Sure Mike, go with that, perhaps you should give it 110 percent, play a full 60 minutes, push the envelope and so forth.

For every team dinner, team bonding exercise, or trip to the local ballet that happens on the road, there still needs to be effort and execution, something that has completely eluded this team to date.

Perhaps an eight-game road trip is exactly what the Sens need, if, for no other reason, than to get away from the Jonestown-like atmosphere at the Sc'ank, personified by "Not So Mean" Eugene Melnyk's latest "captain of the Titanic" moment.

It should be noted that in the 2006-'07 season—the scenario most often used in prophecies of a Sens miracle—the turning point in came on Dec. 23, when the Sens beat the Flyers 6-3 in game 37.

That's two years ago tomorrow.

From that point forward, the Sens went 31-7-8 and wound up in the Stanley Cup Finals in the year that will be henceforth known as "The Big Tease."

Can the Team that Offense forgot finish the season playing above .700 hockey?

On paper? Yes, but if I'm not mistaken, there is a cliche for that one, too.

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