Pierre LeBrun on Claude Lemieux

Imagine Rob Blake’s surprise Monday when he walked into the dressing room in San Jose and saw none other than Claude Lemieux.

Blake had not yet heard his team had called up the veteran winger, so that’s how he found out.

“It was nice to run into him,” Blake told ESPN.com. “It makes J.R. and I a little younger on our team.”

Blake and Jeremy Roenick are both 39 years old, puppies compared to the 43-year-old Lemieux, who also happens to be two and half years older than Sharks coach Todd McLellan.

“But he looks in great shape,” Blake said of Lemieux.

Before we continue, crow must be eaten. We promised to run through the press box naked at the Stanley Cup finals if Claude Lemieux’s NHL comeback bid came to fruition. Ahem, media colleagues, you’ve been forewarned. Please make sure to have eaten dinner before we make good on our promise next June.

“That’s why we called him up,” Sharks GM Doug Wilson, joking of course, told us Monday.

We weren’t the only ones to make fun of this comeback bid. The laughter was universal around the hockey world. And Lemieux took notice.

via Pierre LeBrun Blog – ESPN.

I never thought this would happen. Fortunately, unlike Lebrun, I won’t be running around naked any time soon. Civilization is safe.

I’ve gotten a couple of emails asking me why the Sharks are doing this. I mean, look at the record; they don’t need the help.

Well, that’s not Doug wilson’s style. He won’t be satisfied ujntil this team wins the Cup. There’s always some experimentation on how to make the team better. They’ve been auditioning kids all season, and except for Kaspar (who played his way off the team), they’ve all done pretty well, but none have played themselves onto a permanent spot on the team yet. Good, not great. they don’t make the team better. They do give the Sharks some sense of comfort that if they need the depth due to injuries, they have it, but none of them bought a permenent spot in San Jose.

So, plan B: Lemieux. try him now. The major risk is it doesn’t work, and there’s little damage done anywhere. Nice try, even if it doesn’t work. If it does? the sharks are better. If it sort of works? the Sharks have showcased a piece they can maybe trade at the deadline. Lots of upsides here, maybe small ones, but unless Lemieux runs over joe thornton in practice and tears joe’s ACL, no real downside. Attitude issues? Hell, the Sharks could stand being a little less “nice”, and those same questions showed up with roenick early on, and see how that worked out. you can bet Wilson (and McLellan) aren’t worried about chemistry or locker room issues; those were discussed and resolved before we got that far (earth to Brett Hull: your season was avoidable, if you’d only talked ot your team and your coach, and listened to them. Wilson did, bet on it)

I’m intrigued. I hated Lemieux’s hit on Draper; I loved watching him win the Conn Smythe. he’s going to be fun to watch, even if it’s only two games and back to Worcester.

Hey, maybe we should do signs for the Vancouver game that say “Old guys rule!”

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