Martin Gerber 10-11: Hurricane

Martin Gerber played NHL hockey long enough to face 95 shots. He stopped 91 of them. His reward? Oklahoma City.

On a team that won 25 games all year long, Martin Gerber won all three games he appeared in. His reward? Oklahoma City.

Gerber’s save percentage (.958) ranks first overall among goalies who played more than 180 minutes in the show. His reward? Oklahoma City.

Martin Gerber 10-11

• Boxcars: 3gp, 1.30
• SP: .958
• WLT: 3-0-0
• SP behind starter: Gerber was 68 points clear of the veteran

1. What do these numbers tell us? You’re kidding, right? Put it this way: a drowning man was thrown a rope. The drowning man threw it back.
2. How could these numbers be better? I don’t know, MAYBE A FOURTH START!!?!?!?!?!?
3. You’re overreacting. Oh go to hell. Look, Gerber might have started his fourth game and allowed 5 goals and he STILL would have been a better option for the following game.
4. So you’re saying the Oilers could have finished 13th overall as opposed to 15th? I’ll pass. That’s not the point: if you find an option that is clearly the best one during the season, you owe it to your team to employ that option. NK worked 47 games and lost 32 of them. Why couldn’t Gerber get 20 of those starts?
5. Well there are AHL rules. To hell with the rules. Purchase his contract and play the man.
6. Who would play in OKC? Khabibulin.
7. What kind of message would that send to future UFA’s? Oh, I don’t know. Maybe “when you can’t play NHL hockey we’re going to pay you full wrench to play in a lower table.” Something like that.
8. Good luck signing another front line free agent. I’ll take my chances.
9. Gerber was only average in the AHL. His .911 AHL save percentage was 21 points clear of NK in the NHL. I don’t see that there’s a lot of evidence this guy didn’t deserve 10 starts and then another 10 if he earned it.
10. You predicted he’d played 10 games. He played three. Big deal. The big deal is his performance in these games. Martin Gerber signed a deal in good faith, and that usually means that at some point if you’re better than the next man you’ll get your chance.
11. Do you or do you not want the first overall pick? Not this way. I understand the Oilers aren’t very good and I also understand they’re building toward a wonderful tomorrow. I don’t understand how on God’s earth the Oilers can defend the decision to play Martin Gerber in 3 freaking games. This was a very disappointing decision, right at the end of the roster. Hard to grow champions by holding back their best chance to win. There’s no guarantee that he would have continued on that fast track, and in fact it’s very likely his numbers would have evened out over the season. However, he could have sucked and blew but still ended up with a better record than Khabibulin. He deserved the opportunity, his teammates deserved the best available goaltending, and the fans deserved the best quality Edmonton could offer on the ice. Fin.