I almost feel bad for Pascal Leclaire.  Brought here amidst much hoopla and happiness as "THE SECOND COMING OF THAT CZECH DUDE AND ANSWER TO ALL OF OUR GOALTENDING WOES EVAH!!", he was under enormous pressure right from the start.  Coming off an injury plagued season in Columbus, he now had to face down The Vortex of Suck and Ancient Indian Goaltender Burial Ground that has always been The Palladium/Corel Centre/ScotiaBank Place in a market rabidly desperate for success.  That could not have been an easy thing to do.

Everything began so splendidly once he finally recovered from that pesky ankle surgery that cost him 48 games last year.  Then he broke his jaw while sitting on the bench.  Sixteen games gone...poof.  Then he came back.  Then he sucked.  Then he got a teensy bit better.  Then he got hit in the face.  Again.  Another nine games gone.  Then he came back.  Then Brian Elliott went on a twelve game tear.  Then he sat on the bench.  Then he was finally given a start.  And then he sucked some more; pulled after six minutes in his first game since early January.

Yep, I almost feel bad for him.  Poor guy.  What must he be thinking?  How low, how pitiful must this poor young man be feeling?  Is there nothing, nothing at all, that we, as kind and compassionate fans, can offer in the way of solace?  No ribbon?  No Participant's Trophy?  No "Gee, you did your best but it didn't work out so let's all go get some pizza!!"?  Oh!  I know!  How about a 1500 word apologia about how unfairly you're being treated?

Would that work?  Would dat make our wittle fuzzy wuzzums feel all betters??

Then how about this...

You are a 27 year old man being paid very handsomely to play a game.  Your particular role in that game (for which you are being paid very handsomely you'll remember) is to stop a three inch rubber disk from crossing a little red line.  No more.  No less.  If, for whatever reason, you suddenly find yourself incapable, or without sufficient confidence to fulfill that role to the degree to whcih your coaches, general manager and fans expect....well tough shit.  Grow a set and get better, or get the fuck out of my kitchen.

The rest of the suck after the jump.

The Dizzying High.  Singular.  Ish.  'Cuz I really don't have anything else...

My God!  He's like a young Curtis Leschyshyn out there!: Welcome to the stat sheet Matt Cullen!  After spending your first three games as a Senator flailing haplessly about the ice cloaked in an invisible ball of fail, you now have your first goal!  Bravo.  If nothing else, please rest assured that we still don't miss Alex Picard.

The Terrifying Lows:

'Nuff said: Please see intro re: Whassizname...

At last I finally know what Proust meant: I defy any Sens fan to gaze nostalgically upon the 2005 entry draft, and whereupon hearing the name "Marc Staal" not break into uncontrollable weeping.  If you manage that, then I defy you to control the urge to hunt John Muckler down to whatever retirement home for the feeble minded in which he finds himself and NOT cram tapioca pudding clean through his waddled throat while screaming "BRIAN LEE??  WERE YOU ON FUCKING CRACK?!?!?"  Don't forget to trash the potted fern on your way out.  It's his only friend.

Remember when I took that wine making course and forgot how to drive?: Two weeks.  Fourteen days.  That's how long it took Giggles to forget everything he ever learned about why we love him and revert to the no shooting, no thinking, no back checking, no sweet-dick-all manner of play that made us want to hang him from a lamp post.  The blind back pass across the Canes' blue line with his own net empty was particularly sweet.  Apparently, Jason missed the "if your goalie is busting ass to the bench for the extra attacker, put it deep" portion of EVERY FUCKING PEE WEE PRACTICE EVER.  No, really.  Well played.

Pithy Observation of Questionable Importance:

Dear Quiznos marketing cockroaches...While you may deny it to yourselves, your stockholders and the public at large, your client's "food" already tastes like ass.  Cutting off pertinent replays or the incisive analysis of Garry Galley in mid sentence in order to run ten second "mini-ads" every time there is a stoppage in play not only ensures I will never, ever, spend twelve dollars on the soggy, vomit inducing pile of feces you call a "toasted sub", but may also drive me to firebomb the next franchise I happen to stumble across.  Just sayin'...  Now please crawl under your rock and die, as God intended.

The Curdled Middle:

Earlier today, FreeWillig, author, editor, general man-about-town extraordinaire, sent this email to the other charter members of the OBC: "So, I guess we suck again?"  My reply, naive as it may have been, read thusly... "Yes.  Yes we do.  But for what it's worth, there were faint signs of a pulse in the third" (FW lives in a godforsaken corner of Minnesota and may not have seen last night's game.  Or running water.  We try to help whenever we can.)  And it was true.  By the third period, the boys were starting to play the way they had during The Streak...heavy pressure, crazy-ass forecheck, banging, crashing and generally making life hell for the guys in the other sweaters.  Unfortunately, by the time they got their shit together, the game was lost.  And the rest of us were forced to put up with (former Leaf) Paul Maurice's shit eating grin.  Yay, us.

Up Next:

Oh happy day.  Speaking of which, just as we appear to be headed to the shitter, Leaf Nation rolls into The Bank in all of its (their?) delusional glory.  Personally, I don't care so much about the final result as I do about whether Carks can avenge himself by caving in the right side of Colton Orr's face.  (7:00pm, coast-to-coast, on the CEE-BEE-CEE.  High Def gore!  Yay!)

Behind Enemy Lines:

The only three Leaf sites with any semblance of a grip on reality are Pension Plan Puppets, Die Hard Blue and White, and the always outstanding Down Goes Brown (seriously, it's almost not fair how funny he is).  You may approach the rest at the peril of your literate soul.

Go Sens.

Comments (3)

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (registered users only)

Add Comment