Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.

For the Toronto Maple Leafs, that’s more than a canned safety warning on a car’s rear-view. The Ottawa Senators delivered this message to Craig Berube’s team on Saturday, and appear primed to shake up the entire Eastern Conference playoff picture.

For months we have waited for Travis Green’s team to show us they’re more than a fringe wild-card contender. We’ve seen flashes of brilliance from their top-end players for some time now, but the repeatability of high-end play — especially against elite competition — was fleeting. Couple that with years of unreliable goaltending, and you understand why Ottawa’s playoff drought reached seven years.

But a month out from the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs, we can say an eighth year outside the postseason looks tremendously unlikely. In a literal sense, the Senators have put some real distance between them (holding the first........

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