Emery Bored

Not much of a story here folks, but when you have a headline all written for you like this, sometimes you have to put something under it. The fact of the matter is that Ray Emery is bored and not looking much like the hero he was last year. This problem speaks to three things: New Number One Martin Gerber’s talent, Ray Emery’s attitude problem and coach John Paddock’s mishandling of certain situations.
The first issue is really no issue at all. Last year, when Gerber stumbled out of the gates, I stayed in the minority, believing he would improve, remembering how good he had been. The only problem was having such a highly-paid talent play backup. Emery, however was playing great, helping the Senators get to the final and earning a raise.
Ottawa has bad luck with goaltending. From the weird inconsistencies of the talented Patrick Lalime to Dominik Hasek’s untimely injury, bad luck in net has been a plague. Now they find themselves with two talented goalies having their hot and cold streaks at the wrong times. Currently, they have two big ticket goaltenders in a hockey market where it is very hard to trade a goalie. (Ilya Bryzgalov, no slouch himself, had to be claimed off waivers to get some playing time in Phoenix.)
The big difference between cold streak Gerber and cold streak Emery is that Gerber was all class riding the bench and Emery is throwing tantrums and showing up to practice hungover. I blame Emery for his negative attitude and certainly don’t think his coach should pander to him, but I think the situation could have been avoided.
Although Paddock hasn’t approached Guy Carbonneau levels of talent mismanagement or John Tortorella abuse, his decisions have been unjustly insulting. From pulling Gerber out of a game that he was winning, to starting him on back to back nights, making it unnecessarily clear who was number 1, to not pulling Gerber at any point in an 8-6 loss the other night, his decisions regarding this conflict are creating unfortunate distractions for the team. The Ottawa Senators are in a very good position right now, and can afford to hand some starts to Emery to get his game back and hopefully move forward with the tandem that they paid for.