Gerber? Gerber! is on in relief of Alex Auld tonight, making his seventh start of the year. There's this nagging historical fact of the Senators never having a number one goalie that sub-heads like this one overlook. 'Former No. 1'? On paper once, perhaps, but like most of their previous tenders a 20 to 40 game stint of above-average play appears to be the most we can come to expect. Think of past trends: Ron Tugnutt taking over from Damien Rhodes, Emery doing the same for Gerber, Gerber's brief flash of brilliance at the start of 07-08. So this trend will hold, I fear, with Alex Auld - a guy who can come in off the bench or after an injury and hold the fort for a while in heroic fashion, but can't consistently maintain that dominant position over a 60-70 game starter's schedule (which includes the ability to comfortably re-assert the role following short, but regularly scheduled rest intervals). As always, I hope to be proven wrong, but when Hartsburg finally gave Gerbs the nod after Tuesday's loss, for some reason I was reminded of the Friends episode that even Friends-haters can remember - the one where Joey and Chandler's TV broadcasts free porn and they're unable to turn it off for fear of losing the stream. Regardless of how it goes tonight, I'm most interested in whether Auld can continue providing us that guilty pleasure of getting away with more than we were really willing to pay for.
Sens 3, Hawks 2 (Pizza x3 as per the script), Murray scrutinizes FBI affidavit, vows to apply Blago School of Negotiation techniques to next Khabibulin pitch.
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