The Avery Era Is Over (for good this time)

I'm not sure what there is to say that I haven't already ranted on Twitter. John Tortorella always hated Sean Avery and, with Sather's summer signings, finally had the opportunity to get rid of him and he used it.

That simple.

The nonsense about Erik Christensen getting the job because of his versatility is just that, nonsense. Yes, Christy can play center and wing, but he can also lose the puck at the lightest touch and not play defense. And show up for two, maybe three games a season. And be a supremely smug jerk in interviews and to fans. And not be Sean Avery.

The writing has been on the wall since Torts was hired but it still is sad that this day has come to pass. The head coach of a team should do everything he can to make the team better, to make it win games - not to placate his own ego and carry out a personal vendetta.

I, an avowed Avery supporter who has gone to bat for him before, fully admit that he didn't perform up to par last season - I gave him a C- in my report card - but he was still a valuable player for the team.

As I wrote in my Facts of Life:

The Rangers were 12-4-1 when he registered a point. ... Torts never gave him the chance to gain any chemistry with his teammates, bouncing him around the lineup. And the super pest was stupefyingly scratched for several games down the stretch and once during the playoffs (Torts clearly not learning his lesson from 2009).

I truly hope that Sean is able to find another NHL job, just not in the Atlantic division. Perhaps there is a GM out there willing to look beyond the bad reputation and see a voracious forechecker, a guy who actually stands up for his teammates and a lightning fast skater. Off the ice he is also great for public relations as he is great with the fans and a charitable person.

Hopefully Avery can find someone who believes in his ability and puts him in a position to achieve, not someone who refuses to give him a fair shot. Best wishes to a good and loyal Blueshirt.

Bashing Brash, Day 1

Glen Sather was right, there will be cheers for Donald Brashear at MSG. Given the price increase at MSG, more and more of the diehard, knowledgeable hockey fans have been pushed out. This is not to say that there aren't some puckheads who will root for Brash - you see Redden and Poti jerseys out there, so there are misguided members of the faithful - but the vast majority will not get behind a player with Brashear's history. The cheers will come, however, from the few corporate clients that come - they don't know the game, they don't care about the game, they just want to see a little violence.

And Donald Brashear will certainly provide that. Brashear is a vicious fighter who throws punches with little-to-no regard for personal safety. When Colton Orr would just start launching punches, you knew he was in trouble. He was a more surgical striker who used his size and leverage to work in his defense while he picked his spot for the big blasts. Whether in tight or at arms length, Brash just rears back and throws. I want to trash Brash for it, but let's face it - it has worked for him. He will hit the 1,000 game mark this season, no small feat for a brawler.

The question is how much fighting will he actually do? According to Hockeyfights.com, the past-his-prime brawler had just 11 fights last season and has not had more than 15 in a season since 2002. Just how prolific can he be? Glen can claim that Brashear will fit in Tortorella's system well but Brash scored double digits in goals just once in his career, back in 2000. So since he isn't about to score, what will he contribute to the system? A forecheck of high elbows, slashes and cross checks?

Aside from the outright bitch-slap to the faces of the True Blue and every player in the locker room, the decision to sign Brashear is a slap in the face of the sport. He blatantly ignores the Code on the ice but teams keep picking him up because of the success of all-out-warfare fighting style. It has gotten him suspended time after time from the NHL and even suspended for a dozen games in a league based around fighting! At the time brash put it back on the league, saying that everyone there was picking on him, trying to make a name for themselves.

I'm sorry, there is no excuse for breaking the Code. It is Brashear's readiness to denigrate our sport with his barbarity that I loathe him and won't be among those cheering when he steps out on the ice in a Blueshirt this fall or any other time.

So, each day this week, I am going to post a YouTube of the animal in action. Today's fine feature will be the Quebec senior league incident that caused the aforementioned 12 game suspension:

And Glen Sather signed this guy.

R1, G5: Coach's Ego Costs Rangers

Siegfried & Roy knew that when they could no longer work with the tiger, it was time to call it quits. No one wants to pay to watch two dorks not be funny. John Tortorella put his head in the tiger's mouth, got bitten and got rid of the tiger. Big mistake, and there was nothing funny about ensuing show, a 4-0 loss to the Caps.

Benching Sean Avery for Game 5 lost the game for the Rangers before the puck was even dropped. Tortorella wanted to send a message and he did - his ego is bigger than his desire to win. Everyone has seen the Rangers record with and without Avery in the lineup; you don't have to be Stephen Hawking (get well soon) to figure out that when the team really needs to win a game, Avery should be in the lineup. He wasn't, and they didn't.

Say what you want about Avery's reoccurring antics: they are reckless, they sometimes injure other players and they put the Rangers at a disadvantage. Quick quiz - how many times has Avery taken a penalty as a Ranger and had it directly cost the team a game? The answer? Zero. In the eight games that the Blueshirts lost since getting Avery back, he took penalties in six of them. And not once did the opposing teams score on the ensuing power play. There were two occasions when the game was tied (one was when he fought Tyler Kennedy) and just once were the Rangers clinging to a lead (against Atlanta on March 26th). In the other losses he may have not helped get the team back in the game but it is undeniable that Avery's indiscretions have yet to directly cost the team a victory.

Sadly the same can't be said for Captain Queeg Tortorella.

Tortorella wants to preach accountability and yet Markus Naslund didn't sit in the skybox for a second after his parade to the penalty box in Game 1. Chris Drury took a bad penalty in Game 3 and the Caps scored on the ensuing power play to essentially kill the Ranger chances and he wasn't benched. Both Scott Gomez and Tortorella himself took penalties to put the Rangers on their heels in the opening minutes and you can be sure both will be back for Game 6. (That is, unless Torts gets suspended for winging a waterbottle into the crowd, but I still haven't seen a good angle of that incident.)

The man preaches discipline, discipline, discipline but I'm not really sure if he knows what it means. It isn't the ability to restrain oneself from taking penalties. In hockey it is the combination of hockey smarts, talent and effort to not place oneself in the position where the referee can call an infraction. Beat the guy to the puck, you don't need to hook or grab him as he goes by. Be responsible with your stick, you won't slash, high stick or trip the guy. Position yourself better, you don't have to crosscheck him. Angle your checks properly and you won't board him.

Sadly on Friday the Rangers showed little of the hockey smarts, talent and effort needed to win and they didn't.

*Even when the Rangers were given a gift, they blew it. How Ryan Callahan didn't get a matching penalty with Erskine at the end of the second period is beyond me. But the Rangers got a power play and did ... absolutely nothing. So typical.

*All season long all I have asked from the maligned unit is to not give up a short handed goal. To the best of my memory, since Avery returned they hadn't. No Avery and Matt freakin' Bradley scores. Coincidence? Perhaps. But it's terrible any way you cut it.

*And the worst part of that goal was not that Rozy fell or shootout specialist Hank gave up a breakaway goal but that Drury game up on the puck, allowing Bradley to blow past him. He made a half-heated chop at it instead of skating through and taking possession or, frankly, hitting it with any kind of oomph. And watching him miss the check on Ovechkin's goal was pathetic. You can only hope that he really is indeed playing severely hurt because otherwise there is no excuse for the captain to be so clumsy.

*Everyone is drooling over that Ovechkin goal and it was kinda pretty but c'mon, how do you celebrate that? As I said over at Japer's Rink, look at who he beat on the way: Zherdev, Morris and Voros. When you think about how good Ovechkin is, that is like you or me skating though a bunch of handicapped children. Would you jump around? Wooo!!! In your face!!! Yippeeeeee! I didn't think so.

*Speaking of the challenged, Joe Micheletti made his best observation to date - pointing out where Alex Semin was positioned on the face off that he scored off of. Of course, Joe neglected to point out that Hank's angle was off and he was already on his knees as the puck hit the top of the post but let's face it, it was a helluva shot.

*Hank allowed his first soft goal of the series, the bad-angle shot that made it 2-0. Like I said before, you can also hang him a little for the first goal but there was no way he was stopping either of the goals by the Alexes.

*He wouldn't of had to try on the Ovechkin goal if the officiating blew the whistle when they should have. You can clearly see Sergei Fedorov kick out Zherdev's leg on the replay. Z tumbled and Fedorov kicked the puck to OV. I mean, it isn't like Zherdev wasn't going to actually do anything with the puck, but a penalty is a penalty and the slew foot clearly was a penalty.

*As MSG showed, Blair Betts did kick the puck back to Semin on the third goal but that was just bad luck. All Bettsy did with Dubi, Sjoey and Cally was get the Washington power play to go 0-7. And a ton of credit has to go to Staalsie and Girardi, were on for around seven minutes of kill time. That is insane. And in a game where the opponent scored four goals, they were the only defensive pairing not to have a goal scored against while on the ice.

*Interesting timing for Colton Orr to finally get angry - 14:14 of the third period. It was just outside of that dreaded last-five-minute-sending-a-message time. It was also way too little, way too late but that likely goes back to the incompetent coaching.

*At this point all you can hope for is that Torts hasn't blown the series. He surely sent the wrong message to Sean - he benched him and the team lost. Sam Rosen even said at the 13 minute mark of the second period that 'the Rangers sure need a spark' or something to that effect. But perhaps Avery will show he is the better man and come out like gangbusters on Sunday. If not, the Rangers are finished.

*PHW Three Stars
3-Simeon Varlamov - 20 saves.
2-Alexander Ovechkin - one goal.
1-Matt Bradley - two goals.

Scotty Hockey Three Stars
3-Girardi/Staal - These kids are getting better and better. Too bad the coach won't give them a chance on the power play because they surely can excel there as well.
2-Bradley - Even as an opposing fan, you have to love when guys like this score. hard work pays off kids.
1-Tortorella - His personnel selection, both in his roster and on his power play - gave Washington the win as much as anything the Caps actually did themselves.

Renney = FAIL

According to Sam Weinman, Tom Renney has scratched Lauri Korpikoski for tonight's game and is dressing Aaron Voros in his place.

“Getting Voros back in, getting his game back into the lineup, and his presence at the net to help our power play,” Renney said when explaining his rationale.

To help the power play? The power play that Voros was incapable of helping prior to his benching? The power play that Voros scored one goal on in his last 33 games?

Renney went on to acknowledge that Voros, who has been a scratch the past two games in part because of a drop-off in his fitness level, has worked his way back into shape; and that the move tonight was an effort to reward that.

So Renney will reward players who work out off the ice but he won't punish the ones who don't work on it ...