Should Sean Avery play in the NHL?

Should Sean Avery play in the NHL?

February 9th^th 2009

I’m going to come out right away and say, that even though I’m not a big fan, the guy should be playing back in the NHL. As annoying as he is, he has some talent. As to which team has enough balls to sign the guy, time will tell. The New York Rangers are the latest rumor going around. The question of Sean Avery’s character has come up many times, and obviously he has made some poor decisions in his NHL career, but then look at all the other players that have made mistakes, learned from them and went on to contribute to the game we all love.

In Dallas he was making $4 Million dollars a year for something. I’m pretty sure a player that only averages 35 points a season shouldn’t be getting that kind of money, if that’s what the Stars were paying him for. Obviously then he was signed for something else. He’s an agitator like Matt Cooke from the Pittsburgh Penguins or Jarkko Ruutu from the Ottawa Senators. Teams want those types of players and early on in Avery’s career some coach recognized this talent that he had. He’s been encouraged to play this role and even rewarded with a big fat contract in Dallas because of those certain skills he has. If someone gave me $4 Million dollars per year to piss people off and play a game that I love, I would take it and be happy about it.

continued......

In my opinion, I think it’s pretty pathetic of the Dallas Stars organization to encourage Avery to play this role for them, then use him as a scapegoat the second it backfires on them. That being said his choice of using the beautiful Elisha Cuthbert as a way to tick off Dion Phaneuf shouldn’t have happened either. The term, sloppy seconds will forever be immortalized with Avery in the hockey hall of shame. There’s a fine line not to cross in the NHL, and he put the Zamboni in overdrive and plowed right through it! Considering the timing of the event, it was so obvious what he was trying to do, he just went a bit overboard. If Dallas wanted him to play this role, they should have shown him where the boundaries were.

I think he’s probably learned his lesson and deserves to play again for some NHL team, I just hope it’s not mine.

Discuss this article and what you think about it in The Forums under the Hockey Articles section.