An Ottawa radio show gave Senators fans a shoulder to cry on after their team's season-ending loss Saturday, keeping phone lines open well into the following day.

Those listening to  the sports radio station 1200 The Team heard hours of grief, frustration and confusion, although one host said fans weren't angry.

"There's a lot of resignation, I think, from people who have seen it too often and they're very disappointed," host Al Armstrong told CTV Ottawa on Sunday. "But there isn't the same vein of hatred as there was when they lost to the (Toronto Maple Leafs)."

The Sens have previously lost four straight playoff series to the Leafs, who failed to make the playoffs this year.

Fellow host Lee Versage said the fans aren't the only ones devastated by the defeat.

"So many guys on this team expected to win. They didn't, and the fans expected it as well," he said.

The top-seeded team in the Eastern Conference was defeated 3-2 on Saturday night by the Buffalo Sabres, losing the conference semi-final series in five games despite outshooting the Sabres 179-117.

Twenty-three-year-old rookie Jason Pominville, a fourth-line forward, scored the winning, short-handed goal in overtime to end Ottawa's seasn. In comparison, the Senators' top scorers didn't come through.

Fans called the show to offer numerous reasons why the Senators lost, and ways the team could improve next year. Some focused on specific players.

"Zdeno Chara has not played up to his potential since the All-Star break," one caller said of the giant defenceman. Chara is one of three high-profile players set to become a free agent this summer, along with fellow defenceman Wade Redden and forward Martin Havlat.

Another argued that absent goaltender "Dominik Hasek was a distraction for the whole team -- he should have been out somewhere." Hasek had suffered a serious groin injury.

Prior to the playoffs starting, many analysts thought Ottawa was Canada's best chance to win the Stanley Cup. That pressure now falls completely on the Edmonton Oilers, tied 2-2 in their series against the San Joe Sharks. Those two teams play Game 5 on Sunday night.

Police say they'll beef up security to control any potential rowdiness on Edmonton's "Blue Mile" hockey party strip. On Friday night, two people ended up stabbed. About four dozen people were arrested, mostly for minor offences.

The Calgary Flames -- whose fans partied along the "Red Mile" -- were extinguished by the Anaheim Mighty Ducks in Game seven of their Western Conference quarter-final, ending hopes of a "Battle of Alberta" against the Oilers.

Montreal is now into its longest drought between Stanley Cup wins in the team's history, after getting knocked out by the Carolina Hurricanes in the first round. No Canadian team has won the Stanley Cup since the Canadiens in 1993, although the Flames made it to the finals in 2004.

The Vancouver Canucks and the Leafs didn't make the playoffs this year. Both teams' head coaches were fired -- Pat Quinn of the Leafs and Marc Crawford of the Canucks.

Damien Cox, hockey columnist for the Toronto Star, wrote Sunday that Ottawa GM John Muckler could be gone this week.

But Cox had some harsh words for a franchise that simply hasn't been able to get the job done during the playoffs.

"This result is a damning indictment not only of this group of athletes, but of the team culture that has developed in the nation's capital. More than the names, it's that culture that must change," he wrote.

"With every playoff loss, however, the weight gets heavier and heavier for the Senators, and harder for future editions of the team to remove. This is a franchise that has been stigmatized."

With a report by CTV Ottawa's John Ruttle