With his old team struggling -- and now in the middle of a bit of a goaltending controversy -- there's no time like the present for former Senators GM John Muckler to weigh in, huh?
Muckler, who has said little since he was fired in June, says the Senators must trade either Ray Emery or Martin Gerber.
"That's too much money to be tied up in two goalkeepers. The thing is, I don't think they know which one is No. 1," Muckler said on Live At Wayne Gretzky's on XM satellite radio yesterday.
The picture is even less clear after Gerber was pulled in the second period last night.
Muckler said he believed Gerber would bounce back from his struggles last season. The former GM also said he thinks Emery could be a No. 1 if he works on his lateral movement and that he has a tendency to "lose his net."
How did Muckler feel about the way things went down last June after he was fired with a year to go on his deal and was replaced by Bryan Murray?
"Was I upset? I wasn't upset about it. I was sad," he said. "Ownership made a decision and that's their prerogative. You've got to respect that."
But Muckler admitted that it's "hard to stand on the outside and look in. I have my good days and my bad days, especially with the success we had in Ottawa."
His biggest regret in Ottawa is not getting the team out of town during the 11-day layoff between winning the Eastern Conference final and the start of the Stanley Cup final in Anaheim.
"They sat around for 11 days and heard how good they were. They had a beer here and beer there.
"The regret I have is we didn't get out of Ottawa after five or six days. We didn't handle it well as management or coaches."
HEAR AND THERE: The fans booed when coach John Paddock gave Gerber the hook. Hmmm. Were they booing Paddock, Gerber or Gerber's replacement, Ray Emery?... How much better are the Flyers this year? About two months. They went into last night's game with 12 wins. They didn't get their 12th win last season until Jan. 28 ... Senators winger Dean McAmmond, bumped up to the top line with captain Daniel Alfredsson out, played 12:31 through two periods. He had been averaging just 10:37 a game. McAmmond also picked up an assist on Dany Heatley's goal.
THE BUZZ: Senators forward Randy Robitaille went back into the lineup after missing the previous game with a bruised hand that made it tough to hold his stick. He pretty much played because Alfredsson and Patrick Eaves couldn't. "I won't be taking any one-timers," Robitaille said. His plus-minus was also hurting -- a minus-4 after two periods ... Scott Hartnell scored Philly's second goal from 47 feet out and some will think Gerber should have had it. But how does Daniel Briere, seconds before, skate 140 feet 5-on-5 and not have somebody -- anybody -- get in his way? ... BTW, that was Hartnell's third goal of the season, but his first with a goalie in the net.
REVELATIONS: Senators winger Brian McGrattan went out of his way to push a Flyer through the open door of the Philly bench in the first period. It seemed excessive (he got an interference penalty on the play) until you saw who it was: Ben Eager, the Ottawa native whom the Senators don't like very much ... Alfredsson was pretty confident he would be able to play Wednesday when the Senators visit the New York Islanders. "I feel much better," he said of his sore groin. Fans will feel much better about that, too.
SPECULATIONS: There's a website, votemikerichards.com, to get the Philly winger on the all-star team. Gerber and defenceman Wade Redden might have helped Mike Richards get a few more votes in the second on a play that shouldn't have wound up in a goal ... McAmmond had a pretty good idea about how to play and where to position himself with Heatley and Jason Spezza. "If you want any two guys to go deep, it would probably be those two, wouldn't you think?"
LEMME SAY THIS ABOUT THAT: Sometimes we take for granted the talent in the NHL. Flyers forward R.J. Umberger took Briere's pass off his skate to his stick in one smooth motion to score the game's first goal. Very nice.
JUST WONDERING: How does Sportsnet run a poll of seven players, asking who has the best chance of scoring 50 goals this season, without including Heatley? That's a lack of respect toward the league's only current back-to-back 50-goal scorer. Is he off to a slow start? He scored his 12th last night (on Nov. 24) in his 22nd game of the season. He scored his 12th last season on Nov. 24, in his 23rd game, in which he added his 13th and 14th goals.
PARTING SHOT: Never mind all that stuff I said about Umberger? He just found himself alone in front of Gerber and couldn't even get off a shot.
