Senators try to regroup for Game 7

This isn't quite how the Senators' top players envisioned how Game 6 would end.

Alfredsson, who had missed the previous three games with a concussion, returned to great fanfare on Monday night in Ottawa -- his sons, Hugo and Loui, skated the Senators' flags onto the ice before the game -- and did have one good scoring chance in the second that Henrik Lundqvist turned aside.

But in the third, after the Rangers grabbed a 3-1 lead, Alfredsson had only a few shifts early and was seen destroying first a stick and then a water bottle after taking a solid hit from John Mitchell.

"I know I have to control myself," Alfredsson told reporters after the Senators workout Tuesday in Ottawa. "I don't send a good message to the rest of the team by doing that. So I don't think you'll see that happen again."

Spezza was credited with the controversial late goal that accounted for the 3-2 final, but he was plastered to the bench to start the third thanks in part to a missed assignment on Chris Kreider's goal in the final minute of the second period.

"He wasn't hurt," was Senators coach Paul MacLean's answer to why Spezza wasn't on the ice early in the third, even for a power play.

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Spezza, who leads the Senators with five points in the series, said Tuesday he was miffed about the brief benching.

"I think he just didn't want us out there because we weren't going good on the power play. That's his prerogative," Spezza said of MacLean. "We didn't agree. We were trying to score, but that's part of the game.

"If there was a message sent, it was received."

The NHL issued only warnings to Michalek and Senators general manager Bryan Murray for Michalek's kick and Chris Neil's postgame comments -- Neil, who took a shoulder to the head from Michael Del Zotto after escaping punishment for a similar hit that concussed Brian Boyle in Game 5, said he was "sure I'll catch [Del Zotto] with his head down one of these times."

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But all hands will be on deck for Ottawa in Thursday's Game 7, and MacLean is hoping for much better from his top- end players. "Frustration is a useless emotion to me," MacLean said after the game. "We didn't have enough focus."