Good night: Sean Avery is a supergenius
The Lead
If Sean Avery really wants to help his team, he could get suspended before every game.
Despite Calgary having a large advantage in time of possession, shots and bulletin board material, the Stars improbably cobbled together their second consecutive win for the first time all year and handed Calgary just its fourth loss at home, 3-1.
In the first period especially, Calgary controlled much of the game’s tempo and flow, and Mike Cammalleri was making phenomenal passes every shift. But Flames forwards seemingly had no interest in putting their stick on the ice while in the slot and all the heroics went for nought. Shots after one period read 9-5 for Calgary, but it could’ve easily been 15 had the Flames not been so careless. Consequently, the 1-0 scoreline for Dallas, courtesy of a goal from Toby Petersen of all people, was more than a little frustrating.
The Flames did, however, capitalize on the only power play Dallas gave them all night, with David Moss scoring one second after Stephane Robidas finished serving a penalty (he hadn’t even gotten both feet out of the box yet) to level the game at 1:44 of the second period.
Marty Turco eventually turned aside 27 more shots over the final two periods, many from in close but none particularly threatening, and finished the night stopping 36 of 37. Fabian Brunnstrom’s goal at 7:53 of the second proved the eventual game-winner. Loui Eriksson added an empty netter.
Here’s why this was SUCH an impressive performance from the Stars: with the Sean Avery suspension, Dallas had just enough bodies to dress 18 skaters, 11 forwards and seven defensemen. That the Stars outworked the Flames in such a situation was a small miracle, that they won was a big one. They took one penalty all game, and while it cost them, it’s pretty impressive considering they came in averaging 17.6 penalty minutes per game, sixth most in the league.
The goals came from Petersen, who had just one coming into the game, and Brunnstrom, who had played just 1:16 in the Stars’ previous game. Dave Tippet has to be happy with the way the team responded to such adversity. The Suspension, injuries, a season of poor play and worse special teams numbers could have had the Stars hanging their heads and ready to get steamrolled. But they ground out an unlikely win at Calgary, and that has to feel great.
Now then, a word on the real headline from the Calgary/Dallas game: Sean Avery and the “sloppy seconds” comment.
Who cares?
Okay that was two words, but it’s pretty hard to condense it from there. Perhaps “So?” would have worked. Here’s why it’s ludicrous. Avery is suspended INDEFINITELY for a comment to the press, while Chris Pronger is free to elbow and stomp on whomever he likes with, y’know, general impunity. Sometimes he doesn’t even get suspended for it.
It reminds me of an old Avery interview I read from Player Magazine, wherein Avery is asked what is off limits in his voluminous trashtalking.
PLAYER: A lot of that is trash talking?
SA: Yeah. I guess I know how to hit certain guys’ sore spots.
PLAYER: Are there any rules to that?
SA: Kids are pretty much the only thing that’s off limits for me. Everything else is fair game. Especially wives and girlfriends.
So do you think this is something Avery hasn’t brought up to Dion Phaneuf before, or Mike Komisarek, or Jarret Stoll? You don’t think Avery hasn’t mentioned to each of them, in passing, that he has, in fact, slept with their puckbunny girlfriends? It’s never come up? Please. And I bet they can take it. EVERYONE takes EVERYTHING Avery says with a grain of salt. It’s been that way forever. Why care now?
This is such a ridiculous reputation call that has been snowballing for months, between criticizing individual members of the media, basically calling Bettman an idiot (rightly so, in some cases), flipping off cameras and generally being kind of a dick — all as per his job title, by the way — has finally caught up to him in the league’s eyes. Plus, there’s no precedent for this, so the “throw the book at him!” attitude seems a bit of an overreaction.
Avery’s suspended indefinitely. Meanwhile, Ryan Hollweg played for the Leafs tonight. Who’s worse for the league?
Elsewhere…
Philadelphia 4, Tampa Bay 3 (OT)
Oh hey, another overtime loss for the Lightning. Who saw that coming? Although, if there was any justice in the world, or really, if Ryan Malone wasn’t awful, the Lightning would’ve won after this boneheaded play from Scott Hartnell:
Florida 5, Washington 3
Greg Campbell, Radek Dvorak and Ville Peltonen all had a goal and an assist as Florida beat up one a Capitals team that has at least 14 players on their death beds. It’s really not even remotely fair when Bryan Helmer and Sami Lepisto are eating 20-plus minutes each. I just feel so bad for the Caps. They have at least 25 percent of their AHL club up with the big team.
Montreal 5, Atlanta 4
At one point, Montreal led this game 3-0 before Atlanta scored three goals in 59 seconds to even it up. Ron Hainsey had two of those by the way (go River Hawks). But because Atlanta is Atlanta, they gave up two goals in 3:56 to lose the game. Andrei Kostitsyn continued to show that the demotion to the fourth line was a wakeup call, scoring a goal and adding a pair of assists.
Phoenix 4, Los Angeles 2
Who took over the game in the third period? TLP favorite ENVER LISIN took over the game in the third period! He scored twice in the third period to pull the Dogs even with the Kings and then put them up about four minutes later. He’s gotta be up with the big team for good, right? He gets to the good parts of the ice (witness his first goal) and has a little bit of speed and a hard slapper as well (witness his second). Boy do I like watching this kid play. Yessir.
San Jose 5, Toronto 2
Joe Thornton had a goal and three assists in the first period. He set up Devin Setoguchi’s 13th(!), scored his own, then picked up helpers on goals from Dan Boyle and Marc-Edouard Vlasic. That was just about the end of that one. Ron Wilson did, for the record, get a nice bit of applause in his first return to the Shark Tank. Toronto actually outshot San Jose 31-30, but y’know.. the Sharks and everything. Too much.
