Fanning the Flames in Ottawa

The Senators can thank their amazing run at the beginning of the season for their position they're in at the current junction of the season. The Sens remain 6 points on top of their division rivals in Montreal for the division and conference lead, no thanks to their 5-5-0 record in their last 10.

Now with a long-term injury to Dany Heatley (Jeff) and a few smaller injuries, the Senators will have to rely on their goaltending a little bit more, which probably doesn't sit well with many Sens fans at the moment. The goaltending has been everything but reliable of late, with Martin Gerber (Chris) inconsistent and Ray Emery (Box 24) a constant soap opera of late. GM Bryan Murray seems to have a "wait and see" approach on the go at the moment, but you could argue that the status quo was what kept them one game away from winning the Cup. I don't know how much of an argument you could have, but I'm sure you could re-hash it a bit.

Dany Heatley	Jason Spezza	Daniel Alfredsson
Dean McAmmond	Mike Fisher	Patrick Eaves
Randy Robitaille	Chris Kelly	Shean Donovan
Brian McGrattan	Antoine Vermette	Chris Neil
Nick Foligno

Wade Redden	Joe Corvo
Andrej Meszaros	Christoph Schubert
Chris Phillips	Andrei Volchenkov
Luke Richardson

Martin Gerber

Ray Emery

The current roster above has Heatley out indefinitely and once he's missed his tenth game, the salary number opens a tad and a little more room is given. The Senators have already missed enough man games from Anton Volchenkov (non-pool) and Patrick Eaves (non-pool), which also opens up the room a little more from their projected annual total of $49.2 million.

With that little bit of space, could the Sens sure up their goaltending? Who is really available? The Sens are not in the market for a high priced keeper and the one's in their price range are either not starters or unavailable because of potential. The Sens are also in the mix "allegedly" for guys like Mats Sundin (John P.), Rob Blake (Box 5) and Marian Hossa (Dale C.)... but who isn't?

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