The following is an opinion piece.

When the Rangers stuck Sean Avery in front of Martin Brodeur on Sunday afternoon, they probably never imagined that he would go to such lengths to attempt to distract the New Jersey netminder. Yet there he was, waving and ranting and raving like a man possessed.

Avery played more like a basketball defender than a hockey player, facing Brodeur and waving his arms and stick around in an attempt to distract the goalie.

Brodeur reacted in expected fashion, trying to follow the puck and swat Avery away like a fly. Lots of skaters make their living in front of the net on the power play of course, like Tomas Holmstrom or Ryan Smyth, but nobody has quite taken the art of screening to the level that Avery did in Sunday’s game.

So was it innovation or was he breaking some sort of unwritten rule? Gary Bettman said he discussed the matter with Colin Campbell, the NHL’s senior vice president of hockey operations, on Sunday afternoon. “It’s something that we’re going to address, probably in the realm of either goaltender interference, or unsportsmanlike conduct. We’ll put the clubs on notice before we make that interpretation. But the ingenuity and creativity of things we’ve never seen before never ceases to amaze us. But we’ll deal with it,” he said.

Goaltender interference? Sounds a little suspect to me. I’m no Sean Avery fan, as my posts here document, but I’ll be the first to admit that calling what he did “goaltender interference” or “unsportsmanlike conduct” is a stretch. Avery had no contact with Brodeur, didn’t touch him, and didn’t touch anyone else. The only risk in the play was that Avery’s stick was up in the air. It seemed that Chris Drury actually skated into the play to tell him to put his stick down, too.

Avery can be ingratiating, annoying, and one hell of a pest. He’s also a ridiculously smart player that levels the foundation of “Canadian honour hockey” that can often be pathetic. His ability to get in the heads of his opponents (and sometimes his own teammates) shows just how different a player he is. But is he a bad player? No. He scored a goal moments after distracting Brodeur.

Teammates supported Avery. “Show me the rule book,” Brendan Shanahan said. “What’s the rule? If they’re going to change a rule in mid-season, they need a 30-0 vote of the Board of Governors.” Shanahan knows the rules, too.

Critics and reporters throughout Canada, like in the Globe and Mail, are suggesting that Avery needs to have the book thrown at him for his clownish antics. What? These are the same critics and reporters that suggest that fighting needs to be introduced even more into hockey and that the fisticuffs are a “normal way to solve disputes.”

Let me see if I’ve got this straight: Avery clowning around in front of the net and distracting Martin Brodeur by making himself look silly is bad for hockey, despite the notion that there was no contact and NO goalie interference to speak off. Full-on bumps and hits on the goalie are tolerated (ask Roberto Luongo after last year’s playoffs) and no calls are made. But somebody waves his arms around in front of the precious Brodeur and the league considers a penalty and an amendment to the rules? Are you kidding me?

Had it been almost any other player, the league would have ignored the incident and possibly even praised its innovation. But once it’s Sean Avery, look out. The entire foundation of hockey is being tossed asunder. Hold on to your hats, purists, Sean Avery’s on the ice.

It was a horrifying moment.

Midway through the third period of Sunday night’s Florida Panthers versus Buffalo Sabres game, Panthers’ forward Richard Zednik was cut across the throat by a teammates skate. Thankfully, he is in stable condition after surgery to close the deep gash on the right side of his neck.

The incident delayed the game for fifteen minutes and led to discussion about whether to call the game off altogether. Zednik was behind the play and skating into the right corner of the Sabres’ zone when teammate Olli Jokinen was upended by Sabres’ forward Clarke MacArthur. Jokinen fell head-first to the ice and his right leg flew up and struck Zednik directly on the side of the neck.

Clutching his neck, Zednik raced to the Florida bench leaving a long trail of blood behind him on the ice. When he arrived, he nearly fell into the arms of a team trainer who quickly applied a towel to the cut. Zednik was then helped off the ice by the trainer and teammate Jassen Cullimore and escorted to the Panthers’ dressing room.

“The surgery was successful and he’s resting comfortably in the hospital,” Panthers spokesman Brian Goldman said after the game.

“We shouldn’t have finished the game,” Jokinen said. “I saw the replay, that it was my skate that hit him in the throat. I think we were all in shock. I’ve never seen anything like that. There are bigger things than finishing the game. It was terrifying. I didn’t think anyone on our team was thinking hockey out there after an injury like that. If it was my call, I would have gone to the hospital with him.”

NHL vice president Colin Campbell consulted with Sabres general manager Darcy Regier and referee Bill McCreary in a tunnel after Zednik was loaded into an ambulance. Campbell, who was not available for comment, attended the game in part because his son plays for the Panthers. In a statement, the NHL said that Campbell talked to commissioner Gary Bettman and decided to continue the game after knowing that Zednik was stable, that trainers had stopped the bleeding, and that the teams were willing to go on.

“I can fully understand if they wanted to cancel the whole game,” Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said. “It was pretty solemn. There wasn’t a lot being said on the bench. There was just more concern for Richard than anything else. When you see something like that, it isn’t about playing anymore. But I said, ‘We’re going to finish the game and it’s going to be what it’s going to be.”‘

All of us at HockeyDraft.Ca hold Richard in our thoughts and prayers at this time.

The NHL has suspended Philadelphia Flyers goon Riley Cote for three games after a vicious elbow to Matt Niskanen of the Dallas Stars late in a 4-1 loss Saturday night. Cote also received a match penalty on the play.

The NHL also took this time to “warn” the Flyers. Big deal.

The NHL has passed down a total of five suspensions to the Philadelphia Flyers so far this season. Steve Downie, Scott Hartnell, Randy Jones, and Jesse Boulerice were the other four players to be suspended by the league. This rash of suspensions resulted in a telephone call from everyone’s favourite NHL commissioner Gary Bettman along with league disciplinarian Colin Campbell as they called Philly GM Paul Holmgren on Monday.

“We were kind of put on notice more than anything and that’s fine,” Holmgren said from his Philadelphia office. “We understand the consequences and we’ve just got to be a smarter team.”

While reviving the Broad Street Bullies for a new generation appears to be Holmgren’s plan, time will tell whether the style of play will actually work in terms of putting wins on the board. Playing tougher hockey doubtlessly makes an impact in the NHL, but leading the league in penalty minutes and suspensions can’t be too good.

The Flyers currently sit second in the Atlantic Conference behind the New York Rangers and fourth overall in the East, so it could be argued that something could be working.