Ottawa Buries Another Goalie's Career

Having tricked* Pascal Leclaire into reporting to the Senators' AHL affiliate, Murray today ensured Leclaire would stay there a while by putting him on waivers. Leclaire's fragile nature being common knowledge, the likelihood of another team picking him off waivers is approximately zero.

This is one of those moves I don't really understand. If Leclaire reports, and there's every indication he will, Melnyk is still stuck paying Leclaire's salary. And frankly at this point there's no need for cap space, Murray having done nothing with the availability provided through the departures of Fisher and Kovalev -- well except for paying for "Mister" Anderson's increased cost over Elliot's salary.

(Thinks: Murray did the same thing to Cheechoo last year, and I didn't understand it then, either.)

Leclaire played some lights-out games for the Senators. I thought he showed glimpses of being the true #1, franchise goalie that the Senators have been waiting for. His second biggest problem was that when he wasn't getting let down by the lack of defensive zone coverage, he was getting let down by the almost total lack of generated offense at the far end of the ice.

However, since he couldn't stay healthy for 60 consecutive minutes, it was all academic anyways.
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* I kid. (I think.)