To understand how excited the Dallas Stars are to have Sean Avery in their midst, check out how many of them have rallied to his defense in the wake of his indefinite suspension for making a crass public remark.
Veteran
"It's none of my business," Richards said about his teammate getting his mouth washed out with soap by the NHL. "I'd rather not talk about Sean, he's got his own things going on."
Coach Dave Tippett?
"Disrespect for an opponent. To announce something like that for everyone to hear crosses the line and obviously the league and our owner thought that too."
Goalie Marty Turco?
"We expect that out of him like we have all year. The show continues."
Those, along with a strong statement of support for the disciplinary action against Avery from Stars owner Tom Hicks, are the comments on the record. Off the record, the remarks tend to be a little more, shall we say, colorful when the subject is Avery, whose respectable skills as a hockey player are often dwarfed by his unique ability to irritate those around him.
That finely honed talent has gotten Avery into plenty of trouble throughout his career with four different teams. This time, though, his sophomoric attempt at humor in Calgary has been deemed as the absolute worst thing in the world.
And for the Stars, it presents a gift-wrapped opportunity to fix the big mistake they made without too much embarrassment.
These days in the NHL that's as good as a bailout, except it will probably cost Dallas money, unless the Stars can trade Avery to another team. But that would require finding someone interested in dealing with his shtick, not to mention the three-plus years remaining on his $15.5 million contract. Otherwise, the options for dumping the controversial and often embarrassing player would be a buyout or waiving him, which could mean paying him his entire salary to play in the minors.
Expensive choices to be sure, yet judging by the comments above, it might be worth it if it helps salvage the Stars' season. Dallas has been the league's biggest disappointment, sitting last in the West after getting to the conference finals last spring. But the Stars seemed to be a happier bunch without Avery in their already injury-riddled lineup against the Flames on Tuesday night and turned in a gritty performance to earn a rare road win. Turco had what was arguably his first really good game of the season.
That doesn't mean the Stars will be better off without Avery. But considering Dallas has won only eight games with him, the team isn't likely to be much worse. Avery proved he can help a team win games during his previous stop with the New York Rangers, but his presence in Dallas has been a distraction, if not an outright disaster for the Stars.
And the players have been grumbling about it, at least privately, for most of the season.
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| Don't let this photo fool you -- the Stars have not embraced Sean Avery. (US Presswire) |
The NHL provided that by suspending Avery essentially for being a lousy standup comic when a really stiff fine probably would have the same message about using family-unfriendly terms like "sloppy seconds" in front of television cameras. But with his code-of-conduct violation, the Stars now have the opening to justifiably wash their hands of a player who is there only because co-general manager Brett Hull vouched for him.
Hull fought off strenuous objections within the organization to sign his former Detroit Red Wings roommate, because he saw in him some of his own shoot-from-the-hip characteristics and intensity that would help the Stars. Instead, the team's major offseason free-agent acquisition has been a divisive force in the dressing room, in large part because he apparently revels in his reputation as the NHL's most reviled player.
Avery won that distinction in a Hockey News poll of players, and it has helped him create a much higher profile for himself than his on-ice accomplishments justify. That served him well in his previous 14-month stop with the Rangers, where Avery became so much of a fan favorite, he turned into a man about town who landed in Page 6 gossip columns and a high-profile internship with the fashion magazine Vogue last summer. But the act doesn't play as well in Texas.
New York was good fit for an attention seeker like Avery, but he didn't want to accept a discount to stay with the Rangers, so he took money and then did nothing to fit in with a relatively young organization in a non-traditional market.
Avery's talent for agitating can be effective at times on the ice. It just tends to wear thin in locker rooms and in public and, after only three months, Avery seems to have run his course in Dallas.
The Stars should accept that and cut their losses while they have the chance.
