COLUMBUS, Ohio — Dan Ellis, the foof who whined to millions about the hardships of life trying to get by on an NHL salary of millions and then immediately blamed the social media outlet on which he’d posted what passes for his thoughts for the immediate backlash against him, simply cannot help himself.
For when Edmonton’s flamboyant 23-year-old Swedish rookie Linus Omark, playing in his first NHL game, beat the Tampa Bay goaltender five-hole in a shootout after pulling a spin-o-rama at the blue line and tapping his stick on the ice before unleashing the shot that would win the game, Ellis pulled out the “respect” card.
“It’s embarrassing for him,” said Ellis, who apparently never tires of embarrassing himself. “You come into a league, a respectful league like this, and you try a little move like that. It’s not a very classy thing. That’s just the kind of person he is.”
Actually, Omark didn’t simply, “try a little move like that,” he succeeded with it. “Trying a little move,” is what Olli Jokinen did in Philadelphia last April when he did circles in the defensive zone before picking up the puck in the littlest shootout attempt of 2009-10.
And exactly what “kind of person” does Ellis think Omark is? A Swede? A rookie? How does Ellis have the slightest clue what kind of person Omark is, other than the kind of person who outwits and then beats him with the game on the line?
Ellis wasn’t alone among the crybaby Lightning in condemning the move, which only goes to prove that Tampa Bay lacks more than quality goaltending, it lacks a measure of class despite the presence of Steve Yzerman in the executive suite and Marty St. Louis in the room.
It’s remarkable what passes for discourse on Canada’s national television station and its signature program, Hockey Night in Canada, for there was Don Cherry
once again spouting jingoistic manure over the air
last week, somehow deeming unselfishness on the ice as an exclusive Canadian virtue.
For after showing a clip of a hounded Alex Ovechkin
feeding a wide-open teammate in front for a game-clinching, empty-net goal, Cherry gave his enthusiastic seal of
approval to No. 8 for
learning and doing it,
“The Canadian way.”
Sidekick Ron MacLean
, supposed to know better (except when it comes to Stephane Auger
) sat mute beside him, his silence implying assent.
Right. Because Americans never make that play, neither do Swedes, neither do Finns, neither do Czechs, neither do Slovaks. And obviously Russians never do. That Igor Larionov
, boy was he a puck hound out for his own glory. Only Canadians are unselfish, only Canadians make that play.
That’s the prism through which Cherry sees the world. That’s the prism through which Canada’s national television outlet presents itself.
Dan Ellis
, you can
be sure, knows “what
kind of a person” Ovechkin is, too.
Billy Guerin
is part of the class of the Greatest Generation of Americans, the one that formed the 1996 World Cup team that beat Canada in the last minutes of the last game of the best-of-three
final that might well represent the best hockey ever played.
Guerin, 40, retired this week after deciding not to hang on for one more
try. He retires as the second-best American-born right wing in NHL history, behind only the prolific Joe Mullen
.
We’re talking about a leader here, a man whose acquisition at the 2009 deadline turned the Penguins and Sidney Crosby
into Stanley Cup champions, and who tried
his best to inject professionalism into the Islanders when he served two years as captain beginning in 2007 .
We’re talking about a man of conviction in Guerin, who went through a bitter holdout with New Jersey in 1997-98 even while knowing the contract battle with GM Lou Lamoriello
was putting his selection to the 1998 Olympic team at severe risk, who after playing
a couple of years
for the Bruins, “introduced” himself to militant Boston owner Jeremy Jacobs
across the bargaining table during the lockout of 2004-05.
He was one of the best, Guerin was, one of the best Americans ever, one of the brightest NHL players of the generation.
Maybe Lamoriello hasn’t fired John MacLean
because the GM truly believes the coach has done as well as
possible under extreme adverse conditions.
But maybe Lamoriello hasn’t fired MacLean because owner Jeff Vanderbeek
won’t allow it less than six months after being told by the GM that Johnny Mac was the right man for the job.
Just as then-Garden CEO Dave Checketts
wouldn’t allow Neil Smith
to fire John Muckler
when the GM wanted to do so
early in the 1999-2000
season just months after giving the coach a contract extension.
If New Jersey can get Jason Arnott
to waive his no-trade clause at the deadline, maybe Lamoriello can get the second-rounder back he sacrificed to in the first place to get the center — first a Devil when acquired for Guerin midway through 1997-98 — for the second time.
Finally, this just in: P.K. Subban
says the NHL has enough color without people like Linus Omark
.