Silver Nuggets: Should the Senators call up Robin Lehner?

In yet another Eugene Melnyk interview, he mentioned that Bryan Murray might call up Robin Lehner for a few games at the end of the season. But should Ottawa call up Lehner right now? Based on his numbers from this season, Lehner doesn't deserve an NHL call-up. His 3.19 goals against average might be a result of the quality of Binghamton's team, but his .909 save percentage is average at best.

My personal feeling is that Lehner will perform better in the NHL than he will in the AHL. He has already played lights out for an entire playoff stretch, including multiple overtime wins, a penalty shot save facing elimination, and winning a title in his first professional season. Then to go from that to starting in the AHL regular season again, it's like starting a video game at the medium level and beating it, then restarting the game on easy. You want to go up a level, not down again. Will the motivation still be there?

That aside, Lehner hasn't had a good season (though he thinks he is a better goalie now than last year), but is he a better option than Alex Auld? Auld hasn't started a game since 30 December and hasn't started and finished the same game since 16 December. He also has as many NHL wins (1) as Lehner this season.

King Robin will be able to provide Anderson a rest from time to time, and it also gives the Senators a chance to test him in meaningful NHL games selectively, without throwing him to the wolves. There is also Lehner's belief that he benefits more from practising against NHL shooters than he does by playing games in the AHL.

Here are today's links:

• The Senators worked on their power play today with the units being: Greening-Spezza-Neil, Karlsson-Gonchar and Foligno-Turris-Michalek, Alfredsson-Kuba. (Sylvain St-Laurent)
• Kerry Fraser weighs in on the refereeing in the Ottawa-Boston game. He feels that Ottawa deserved only one power play on the night but that the Bruins deserved five additional power play chances to the four they already received. Notably, he also felt Chris Neil embellished to try drawing a penalty, but got away with it because Dan O'Rourke was under pressure for calling Erik Karlsson a diver. (TSN)
• Another article on Erik Karlsson's contract negotiations and Jared Crozier suggests a 7-year $49 million deal. The dollar value is pretty high, but is Karlsson worth any less to the team than Jason Spezza, especially in the future? (SenShot)
• Daniel Alfredsson's future with Ottawa rests in the hands of Bibi Alfredsson. Daniel has implied he wants to be back, but needs the approval of Bibi. Daniel and Bibi will discuss this over the next few days. Stay tuned! (Ottawa Sun)
• Jason Spezza, Erik Karlsson and Daniel Alfredsson have no problems with the referees, at least publicly. (Ottawa Sun)
• The Senators playoff chances are still at 70% but well down from the 95% range that they use to be. (Sports Club Stats)
• From A to Z, the Senators alphabet soup for the rest of the season. (The 6th Sens)

Should the Senators call up Robin Lehner?