Where do the 2025 Ottawa Senators go from here?

Anything beyond this would have been playing with house money.

Because of who they played in the first round, the Ottawa Senators would always want to say they had a realistic chance of winning the latest postseason Battle of Ontario, and given the randomness of the sport, they did to a certain extent. But realistically, ehhh, the Toronto Maple Leafs were always the most likely winner and that's just how it goes for a team making the playoffs for the first time in eight seasons.

The good news for the Sens, though, is that they are still a relatively young team — the 10th-youngest in the league — and seem poised to consistently return to the playoffs for the next several years or more. Even in a tough, top-heavy division.

But part and parcel with being a seventh-place team in the conference is