With only 4 games into the regular season, some Ottawa Senators fans are already whining about fixing the ‘goaltender situation’. To the fair weathered fans, take a deep breath, relax and stop panicking. You’re making all Sens fans look like morons.

Gerber isn’t going anywhere. He’ll either be hot like he showed he can be in the first 3 months last season and will continue to play. Or he’ll be cold and won’t be tradeable as no other team will want him at his current salary. At least he won’t be tradeable for anything better, we’d probably get someone of the same caliber in return (this includes Khabibulin. We wouldn’t be getting an upgrade in goal if he were to come here. I strongly believe that Khabibulin would not be an answer for Ottawa). That being said, Gerber is most probably going to be a Senator until his contract runs out.

Goaltending has always been an issue with Ottawa. The only time we had some stability is when we had Hasek between the pipes. Other than that, we often had goaltenders that showed random signs of being great but were too inconsistent (Gerber, Emery, Lalime, Rhodes, Tugnutt, Prusek). Elliot in Binghamton shows some promise but won’t be ready for another year or two, but I still don’t see him being an elite goalie. Unless we make a huge trade (not saying this year, but in the next 2-3 years and losing important parts of our O and/or D corps due to the cap), we won’t be seeing a goaltender of Luongo or Kiprusoff caliber between our pipes.

Lets face it, there’s no great goaltenders currently available on the market, and the Sens can’t afford to get a ‘great’ one with this year’s cap situation. So no matter how much we fans cry and whine, we have Gerber and Auld as our goaltenders for the foreseable future.