Written by Graeme Nichols | 18 January 2009

They played from behind for almost the entire game and overcame a sub-par performance from goaltender Brian Elliott, his first in four starts since being recalled from Binghamton last week.

But it would have been worse if not for Elliott.

He kept his faltering teammates in, making a great glove save on Tomas Plekanac and stopping Lang on a shorthanded breakaway after Filip Kuba and Jason Spezza gave the puck away. ~ Allen Panzeri, The Ottawa Citizen

Either Mr. Panzeri contradicted himself or he has some unreasonably high expectations for how good Brian Elliott currently is. If last night's performance was sub-par, we'll have a special goaltender on our hands. With the Senators down 3-1 late in the third, it was Elliott's play that kept that Senators in a game that they did not deserve to be in. In a weird twist of fate, The Ottawa Sun even mentioned the fact that it was Jason Smith whose egregious turnover in the neutral zone lead directly to the soft Tom Kostopoulos' goal.

But, it's going to be that one soft goal that fickle Sens fans will dwell upon. Unfortunately, I think the majority of Sens fans are suffering from some lingering Martin Gerber effect in which any soft goal is a reason to jump off the Brian Elliott bandwagon. Forget the fact that the 23 year old has a 2-1-1 record, a GAA of 2.23 and a save percentage of .923 and ignore the noticeably improved play of the team in front of him. Let's check ourselves at the door and afford the opportunity to play out the rest of the year before we judge the worth of an Elliott/Auld tandem for next season.

In the next 39 games, it's going to be really interesting to watch how Elliott handles the rigours of being the number one starter at the NHL level. While his style reminds me of Tom Barrasso, his situation mirrors Ray Emery's rookie season when he was forced into duty when Dominik Hasek was sidelined for the entire second half of the 2005-2006 campaign. While the Senators had a disappointing end to that season, the experience gained by Emery was invaluable as the team went on to have their Stanley Cup run the following season.

With last night's shootout loss, the Senators are going to have to get 57 of a remaining 78 points to have any chance of reaching the postseason. In other words, they're going to have to win at an approximate 73% clip. Talk about tough odds - If I was a betting man, I think I'd prefer to lay down money on Gerber landing another NHL job.

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