A week from now the Ottawa Senators won't celebrate the four-year anniversary of an event that at the time seemed perfectly forgettable and for the most part was worth forgetting. It was a frigid February family day matinee at the against the Carolina Hurricanes (the Senators coincidentally host theCanes this year on February 12th) https://www.ottawafansstore.com/Jack_Kopacka_Flag-156. The setting was bleak and the events that transpired were even bleaker. At the end of the second period TheCanes scored a late one on Robin Lehner to take a 4-3 lead in the game. That was the last goal Lehner ever allowed as an Ottawa Senator. A back-checking Clarke MacArthur collided with Lehner on the play resulting in concussions for both. MacArthur missed over a month recovering. He played in only seventeen more regular season games over three years after that because of concussion-related issues. Lehner did not return to the ice for Ottawa that season or ever since. He resumed his full-time gig as an NHL goaltender in Buffalo and the significance of that concussion only became truly apparent when Lehner recently divulged that he has long suffered from mental health and substance abuse issues. Andrew Hammond tended the net for the third period of that game and none of us thought too much about it at the time. He gave up two more goals and looked rather fallible. Nothing of any significance happened after that. Except that Hammond won his first NHL start the following game at the Bell Centre. Oh and then over his following 22 games he went 19-1-2 and broke some records that were decades-old https://www.ottawafansstore.com/Ray_Emery_Flag-207. You may remember the Death Valley sweep https://www.ottawafansstore.com/Olle_Alsing_T_shirt-252. You may remember Ottawa settling the score with Carolina on March 17th in overtime when Kyle Turris pulled off the filthiest inside-out move in the slot. You may remember another Kyle Turris OT dagger on April 4th against Washington Artem Anisimov Pillow Cover. Two nights prior Patrick Wiercioch scored his career-defining goal in OT against Tampa https://www.ottawafansstore.com/Thomas_Chabot_Flag-216. And who could forget the miracle against the Penguins on April 7th. I'll always remember where I was for those moments. And I'm going somewhere with this trip down memory lane. I remember where I was for the last game of that season on April 11th in Philadelphia. It was the game that opened our collective eyes to a fact we had all considered and yet hesitated to admit: Mark Stone was our new messiah. We may have only been a year-or-so removed from the heartbreak of losing Alfie and that may have made us reluctant to accept our new saviour. Mark Stone made no mistake in his statement through game-82. He was ready to deliver if we were ready open our hearts to him. So what? Mark Stone is great. Duh. We all know that. We loved Alfie and he was great. He left and Stone became our best winger. What are we discussing here? I was lying awake in bed when it dawned on me that my recollection of the Hamburglar Run was in need of revision. I remember Hammond. I remember Turris and Wierchioch and Stone. I don't believe I remember Mark Stone . I have been depriving myself of the entirety of that statement season from Stoner (concussion issues or Floridian incompetence) he never took that next step. He has put up a very respectable 157 points in 361 regular season games as a defender. And ol' runner up Mark Stone? He has only produced 303 points in 361 regular season games. Now Stone is a forward and hasn't had the concussion issues. He does play for a team every bit as incompetent as the Panthers though. Am I trying to bait you with some revisionist history here? Yes I am. Mark Stone got robbed of that Calder. Now, if you're still reading this (thank you) then let's investigate the implications of Mark Stone's performance that season. Up to and including that fateful matinee against Carolina https://www.ottawafansstore.com/Artem_Anisimov_T_shirt-24, Stone has scored a very respectable 13 goals and added 20 assists. Not too shabby for a rookie on a losing team. Once "The Run" began Stone exploded with 13 more goals and another 18 assists. That was good for 31 points over the final 27 games he played that season. And that is the Mark Stone we know and love now. In the six games Ottawa did lose down the stretch, Stone scored two goals and added two apples. A little basic arithmetic informs us that the man scored eleven goals and had 16 assists (27 points) in the 21games that Ottawa won to make the playoffs against all odds. He had a goal and an assist against the Sharks in the last game of the Death Valley sweep. He added another goal and assist in Ottawa's first game back from that long road trip (against Buffalo). In four games against Montreal, Hammond achieved in 2015. Turris had a great season. Karlsson won the Norris. The Pageau-Condra shutdown line was automatic. Hoffman was also in the Calder discussion. There was so much for us to get excited about as fans in Ottawa. Only four years later, lying awake on a Thursday night, did I realize that one player stood tallest even among giants."I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any morethe feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effortto death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expiresand expires, too soontoo soon before life itself." -Joseph Conrad, Youth
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