IF you haven’t seen Sean Avery’s antics from Sunday’s Rangers/Devils game - here it is:

Every commentator is calling this dishonorable, a disgrace to the game and crying for the NHL to make sure it doesn’t happen again.

For my money everyone’s just a little pissed off Avery, a guy everyone loves to hate, came up with a completely legitimate way to get a goalie off his game. Ron MacLean, who is almost always on the mark, goes on in the above clip about how this is Unsportsmanlike Conduct per R75.4(3) because Avery is engaging in conduct “to incite an opponent into taking a penalty”.

Well for my money Ron - you’re imputing some bullshit intention into Avery’s head. Any other time people screw with a goalie it’s not to “incite him into taking a penalty” - it’s because they’re trying to get him off his game so he’ll let in a bad goal. And that’s exactly what’s happening here. Brodeur had a seriously miserable time focusing on the play with Avery acting like a one man freak show in front of the net. And truth be told, Avery scored on that very powerplay within in the minute!

If the NHL and/or the Refs decide do crackdown on this behaviour I would be quite disappointed because they would be making up the rules as they go along simply because one of the “bad guys” (Sean Avery) is actually beating up on one of their “good guys” (Marty Brodeur).