I’m a Bay Area Sharks fan so I’m not well-versed on the Ottawa Senators but I think the team should hold on to Brian Elliot for now and wait until after next season to make a move.  Pascal Leclaire is a fragile and injury-prone goalie that will probably miss some time next year.  If that happens, Elliot can come up from Binghamton and split time with Auld, who is nothing but a disposable goalie.  If Leclaire manages to stay healthy he’ll probably put up good numbers and the Senators can be decently convinced that he’ll turn out to be their goalie of the future.

Obviously, Elliot’s trade stock would be much lower at that time but I think it’s a risk worth taking.  Leclaire just hasn’t shown enough consistency to be deemed the savior of the Sens’ net and make Elliot expendable.  Few would be talking about Steve Mason if Leclaire had stayed healthy.  Granted, he’s played on bad teams but so has Marc Denis who was durable enough to end up on the loss column 102 times during his last three seasons with Columbus.  That’s almost as many games Leclaire has played with the same team since he made his debut in 2003.

The only reason Leclaire is regarded so highly is his high draft position – #8 overall in 2001.  Oddly, I doubt Senators fan would be as excited if Rick Dipietro (#1 overall, 2000) and his brittle hips and knees showed up with his gear at Scotia Bank Place in Kanata looking for a starting job.

Look, I don’t know Pascal Leclaire and I don’t want him to fail but he just hasn’t done anything to make the Senators comfortable enough to warrant trading away a good goalie who can be great in Elliot.  That’s what this longwinded rant is all about.

Crossfit Sunnyvale at Planet Granite is offering free CrossFit classes this month and I attended the first one this evening.  After some mechanics and form lessons followed by some warmups, we did 20 rounds (1 round per minute) of 3 pushups, 6 crunches, and 9 squats without weights. It sounds simple but at round 13 or so I was burning.   My quads feel very weak right now, but they felt great throughout the entire workout.  My abs, on the other hand, felt tired very early on.  I managed to finish all 20 rounds, though.

My next class is on Thursday night and I’m looking forward to being tired and achy that evening.  At least I know I’ll sleep well.

In the meanwhile, take a listen to “Lincoln Highway Dub” off Sublime’s Robbin’ The Hood.  This song was the basis for their most widely-known song, “Santeria.”

On April 4, 2004, the Sharks hosted the Los Angeles Kings in the the last game of the 2003-04 regular season.  With about 25 seconds left in the game, and the Kings leading 3-1, the Sharks had faceoff deep in the Kings’ zone.  Alyn McCauley won the draw and Nils Ekman fed the puck to Brad Stuart who fired a slapshot from the point with 20 seconds left.

Moments later, with seconds left in the game, the Sharks rushed into the Kings’ zone for one last attack and Vincent Damphousse fed a perfect pass from the bottom of the near faceoff circle to Brad Stuart who scored easily from the slot with just 3 seconds left to send the game to overtime.

During the extra period, Damphousse picked up a loose pick in the near Kings’ faceoff circle, turned back towards the hashmarks, and fired a wrister over Roman Cechmanek’s glove for the winner and for a spot in the San Jose Sharks’ list of memorable moments.

Immediately after the game ended, this is what the Yahoo! Sports NHL front page looked like.  Notice the last score on the right. (Click for full size):

Finally, the correct score popped up after minutes of refreshing my browser.  (Click for full size):

Bonus: Here’s the video of the comeback for the full experience.