Is it the same as not even making the playoffs?

We'll hear from people that the Sens didn't win anything. They'll say that 1 team wins and all the rest can be grouped as those that didn't.

Well, we did win something. We were the best team in the East. My daughter asked me today if we could still have a parade party because we won the smaller Stanley Cup. Next year I said.

We won 13 games these playoffs. 3 short of the goal but we had 13 awesome victory parties each bigger than the last.

We saw our captain lead this team to a place where so many people said he couldn't.

Our younger players that are so key for this team in the years to come like Emery, Spezza, Heatley, Fisher, Vermette, Meszaros, Volchenkov, Kelly, Eaves, and Schubert all have finals experience - know now what it takes and what it's like to lose there. Same can be said about the other veterans like Phillips, Redden and guys like Schaefer and Neil. We didn't have guys who were there before and hungry to be on the other side like Anaheim's Giguere, Pronger, R Niedermayer, McDonald, and Pahlsson. Now we do.

From an organizational standpoint, the club made a lot of money with this run and have sold a lot of season tickets for next year. We expect that will allow the team to move up with the cap and reload for next year (not going into specifics on my wishes - we have the rest of June for that!).

It's not the same as missing the playoffs. We didn't win the Cup, but we achieved a hell of a lot this spring.