MacLean mum on starter
With Twitter controversy over, goalie debate is back in forefront
The potential for an Ottawa Senators goaltending controversy between Craig Anderson and Robin Lehner was pushed somewhat to the back burner Thursday.
Meanwhile, while we wait for Senators coach Paul MacLean to announce his starting netminder for Friday’s tilt against the Boston Bruins, all the rage is about a nasty Twitter fight Wednesday night involving Lehner.
In this new world order where social media so often take centre stage, the exchange between Lehner and Canadian pop star Keshia Chanté — girlfriend of Philadelphia Flyers goaltender Ray Emery — was the talk of the dressing room, even attracting the wide-eyed attention of Lehner’s teammates as he discussed the incident Thursday.
For those of you who missed the back and forth in cyberspace, it began with Chanté tweeting “you’re an idiot” to Lehner, a response to Lehner’s suggestions in an interview Tuesday morning that Emery’s ugly fight against Washington’s Braden Holtby on Nov. 1 called for a suspension and bordered on assault.
Lehner responded to Chanté’s “idiot” tweet by writing, “I know. So what?” with a happy face attached.
Chanté took the fight up a notch, tweeting that she and Emery both made more money than Lehner. Even though she subsequently deleted that ill-advised message, she was bombarded with angry messages from Senators fans coming to Lehner’s defence.
Lehner later thanked Senators fans for their support and Chanté apologized with a tweet saying she is from Ottawa and a Jason Spezza fan.
Lehner said he was genuinely surprised at how big the tweet fight became.
“It’s Twitter and I don’t feel like I did anything,” he said. “It was just kind of an entertaining night on the couch, watching Ottawa have my back ... it was kind of hilarious, but it blew out of proportion.”
The Senators goaltender says he didn’t know who Chanté was before it all started, but he believes he picked up some followers — “not the followers I want, I think, but that’s fine” — and laughed off the money tweet by saying she “probably does” earn more than he does.
As for the comments that started it all in the first place, he wasn’t backing off, saying it was his honest opinion, one shared by many other players, and that it wasn’t a personal shot at Emery, but rather at the incident in general.
“If I do something bad in the future, I will man up to it,” Lehner said. “It’s fine. Everybody makes mistakes, everyone can take the wrong decision. It’s over.”
What isn’t over — in fact, what may just be starting — is the city-wide debate among Senators fans over who should be in the Senators’ net.
Lehner is the NHL’s reigning first star of the week after going 3-0-0 with a 1.33 goals against average and .945 save percentage.
Anderson, who missed those three games due to a stiff neck, returned for Tuesday’s 5-0 loss against the Philadelphia Flyers, where nothing went right.
Now, MacLean faces the difficult choice of whether to go back to his No. 1 netminder or turn to Lehner, who has a career record of 2-3-2, with a 2.11 goals against average and .943 save percentage against Boston. Anderson is 3-8-0, with a 3.46 average, .899 save percentage and one shutout against Boston during his career.
“I don’t think I’m playing,” Lehner said. “That’s fine. Craig is a great goaltender and he’s the No. 1 goaltender and he came back from injury and I don’t think the last game reflects on him whatsoever. We were really not very good last game and we didn’t help him out at all.”
Anderson didn’t speak to the media on Thursday.
MacLean, meanwhile, was giving nothing away, saying he’ll announce his starter Friday morning. He says that head-to-head records and numbers against particular teams are always a factor before making a decision.
“That’s in there,” MacLean said. “The success of how (Lehner) has played, how both have played. We’re giving (consideration) to all that information.”
MacLean also says Tuesday’s result wasn’t about the work of any one player.
“You dress 20 guys every night, so every game we play is a reflection on all the players, whether we win it or we lose it,” he said.
“When you play like we played Tuesday, it doesn’t matter who was doing anything. That was a bad effort on all of our parts.”