SENATORS' GOALTENDING ISSUE GOES BEYOND "MARTIN GARBAGE"

Ottawa Senators goalie Martin Gerber is being called "Martin Garbage" in some circles these days.

Gerber's been good… for about one soft goal allowed per game, but directing venom at the Swiss Miss and his .890 save percentage only obscures the larger problem in Ottawa. Since Day 1 of the franchise, the Senators have been lousy at drafting and developing goalies, so they've been forced to go after free agents.

Of course, this never gets written about or talked about, since among fans and some but not all of the media, it's always easier to scapegoat one guy than actually figure out if there's a larger problem.

Until Ray Emery (fourth round, 1999) had his breakthrough last season -- the team's 13th in the NHL -- no goalie drafted by the Senators ever played 30 games in a season for the club. No goalie drafted by the Senators had ever played 30 games in a season for another NHL club, either. (Don't try to split hairs by bringing up Jani Hurme – was Hurme ever considered a potential No. 1 netminder?)

It has nothing to do with the Sens usually having to draft low due to their great regular seasons, since goalies are still seldom taken in the first round. It's a crapshoot, but everyone has an equal chance to take part.

Just compare the Sens' record for drafting goalies with the other early '90s expansion teams – San Jose, Tampa Bay, Anaheim and Florida. Is there any marked difference? Is this even the best way to evaluate a team's track record with goalies? Let's find out.

SAN JOSE SHARKS: In 1994 and '95, the Sharks drafted their current goalies, Evgeny Nabokov (ninth round, '94) and Vesa Toskala (fourth round, '95). Of course, one round after taking Toskala in 1995, the Sharks drafted another Finnish goalie -- someone named Miikka Kiprusoff. And we all know how that turned out.

Still, that's three current NHL regulars drafted by San Jose, to one for Ottawa.

TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING: Take heart, Sens fans: Your expansion cousins have won a Stanley Cup, but their track record with drafting goalies is much worse. So it all evens out, really. (Well, no, not really.) No goalie the Lightning has ever drafted went on to play 30 games for Tampa Bay in his career, let alone a single season. Zac Bierk (26 games), best known for being the brother of Skid Row frontman Sebastian Bach, had the longest Tampa tenure of any goalie taken by the Lightning.

ANAHEIM DUCKS: Goalie of the future Ilya Bryzgalov, who came up big in Anaheim’s 2006 playoff run, was a second-rounder (44th overall) in 2000. Incidentally, he was taken one pick before Ottawa re-drafted Mathieu Chouinard, whom it had taken in the first round in 1998 and been unable to sign. Chouinard, the guy so nice Ottawa drafted him twice, has played only one game in the NHL.

The Ducks have drafted two other goalies who went on to play regularly in the NHL, although they didn’t have to "develop" either. In 1993, they took a 28-year-old Russian, Mikhail Shtalenkov, and he played five seasons and was good enough to start a few playoff games in '97. In 2001, they took an eighth-round flyer on 27-year-old Martin Gerber, and he panned out fairly well, backing up J.S. Giguere on the 2003 Western Conference championship team before going on to Carolina.

FLORIDA PANTHERS: The Panthers have drafted two current NHL regulars. For the Panthers' first draft in 1993, Bobby Clarke drafted Kevin Weekes in the second round, and he was eventually dealt to Vancouver in the Pavel Bure trade. Weekes is now on his fifth NHL team, but he's been good enough to play 50-plus games in a season three times.

In 1999, the Panthers again used a second-round choice on a goalie who they later traded to Vancouver. Of course, the Panthers got Alex Auld back this summer in the Roberto Luongo-Todd Bertuzzi trade, and expect him to be their regular goalie for years to come.

Of course, there's a reason why Florida has less need to draft a goalie. In 1993, Gary Bettman wanted to make sure his Disney buddies in Anaheim and Wayne Huizenga in Florida wouldn’t be stuck with crap teams for too long, so each NHL team only got to protect one goalie for the expansion draft.

The Panthers wound up taking an established goalie, John Vanbiesbrouck, who led them to the Stanley Cup final in their third season.

In '92, when Ottawa and Tampa Bay came in, each team was able to protect 18 players and two goalies -- or as then-Lightning GM Phil Esposito put it, "in other words, anyone who was any good." The Senators' first starting goalie, Peter Sidorkiewicz as, could give Vanbiesbrouck a serious run in the long name department, but the similarities pretty much ended there.

Neither the Polish Prince (who's now a successful junior coach) or any of the other three goalies the first-year Sens used ever appeared in the NHL regularly after '92-93.

FINAL ANALYSIS

The Senators make it a point of pride to say they're a homegrown team, so to have developed only one good NHL goalie is really glaring. Sure, that's better than Tampa Bay, but that team has a Stanley Cup, and it's better than Florida, but since when was being compared favourably with the Florida Panthers a feather in anyone's cap?

Ottawa has done a pretty poor job of identifying and nurturing young goalies. That could change with either of the young netminders in the system -- Kelly Guard and Jeff Glass -- but don't count on it.

So, Sens fans, don't take the easy way out and blame "Martin Garbage." Blame the Senators' front office. Whatever the reason, they've put themselves in a position where they have had to resort to risky free-agent signings.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.