Clowe Seeks Redemption
March 20th, 2010, 12:21 pm
How much do you make? Less than a million? Let's fight!
A few days ago, Ryane Clowe had a rather unfortunate quote in a Pollak blog post. That quote?
I told him I wasn’t going to fight him, that I’d fight Barch. I probably should have fought him (Morrow), but I have a hard time fighting guys who are the top players on other teams. I don’t know.”
Really the only way to take this is, “I get my ass kicked in fights against great players, so I’ll try and save myself some embarrassment and fight Kris Barch instead.” Although Krys Barch, in both of his fights against Clowe and Jay Leach had a perfectly placed grab hand (right in front of the opponent’s right shoulder), effectively taking the right hand away from both guys. And as I mentioned on the podcast this week, neither elected to go to the left, like Brad Staubitz does. Say what you will about Staubitz, but he’s the best pound-for-pound fighter on the team, and it’s not even close. That being said, it certainly doesn’t make up for his consistency in taking idiotic penalties.
Unfortunately as a result, Clowe looks like a wuss, passing up an opportunity to put the Stars’ best player in the box for 5 minutes. Not a whole lot of hay was made about this quote, though I did see a couple of comments in the thread, and Doug was pretty incensed about it. I didn’t really give it much thought, until last night when I was trying to ignore the Sharks getting worked by Calgary.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BVRIXg5laU[/youtube]
I’m not sure if someone talked to Clowe about his aversion to fighting top players, but he made a statement, maybe one of the only high points in the Sharks’ collective game all night. It was an active and entertaining scrap, with Clowe fighting one of the biggest stars in the game- probably the best-fighting big star in the game to boot. My little theory is Clowe was trying to redeem himself for running away from Morrow. These two things have to be a little related, right?
I can’t endorse the sentiment Clowe expressed above, but I admire his balls for taking on Iginla. You can handle yourself against top players just fine, big guy. Don’t back away anymore.
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Agreed. No coincidence here. Someone said something to somebody about someone being a something and he did something about it. He earned my respect back for that.
“I don’t know, it was just one of those things that happened. Maybe I should have fought Morrow the other day and had a chance tonight to do that. He (Iginla) thinks he’s a pretty tough guy, so why not?” -Clowe
Wow. Anybody catch that Chi/Phx game. Phoenix is legit. They came back twice on Chicago both times down 2 goals and won in the SO…
They are 1 pt behind us right now. I don’t think we are going to win the Pacific again.
Here’s to playing LA in the first round!!??
3pt game between Yotes and Hawks. Worst thing that could have happened.
I wonder if PHX is peaking too soon. Regardless, good to see that area have a team worth cheering for. Unlike Dallas, Anaheim, and LA, I have no ill feelings towards the Coyotes. Then again, all it takes is one feisty playoff series to change that.
Time to start sacrificing to the hockey gods. We need this win against Edmonton tonight!
Just when we thought things as a Sharks fan couldn’t get much worse, they do.
I’m officially going on record and predicting this losing streak will stretch to at least 8 games. I thought that after the Dallas game but kept it to myself.
It’s worse that this is happening after the trade deadline cause I guarantee DW would trade half this team if he could. I haven’t seen something like this in a long time. For the Sharks only that huge losing streak that caused the Joe Thornton trade is similar.
They started pretty well tonight but…. again…. turnovers killed the tram and shot all their confidence. Right now there is no sign if this getting better…
So, what do people think they should do? Should Tmac start benching everyone?? I can’t think of much else that can be done really.
I hate to admit this…. But for the first time in over a decade I’m feeling embarassed to be a Sharks fan right now…
Tom, I have been pretty grumpy this whole slump but after tonight I don’t know if I’m in denial or acceptance that this season could very easily end as disappointing if not more then previous years. I’m not embarrassed though… embarrassing would be the 92-93 season when we went 11-71-2, but its disappointing after what I thought was a promising season with the additions of guys like Nichol and Malhotra. I realize that there is still a lot of hockey left but I went from being afraid to play the Wings in the playoffs too being afraid to play anyone in the western conference. Is anyone excited about a matchup with LA now that we have fallen to 4th?
As to what do we do now? I’d sit Nabby but is Griess gonna right the ship? I doubt it. I might however sit a few people in Minnesota, and then see if they can be recharged on their return to the tank.
First off, I think a benching of Joe Thornton is in order. Just for a game, just to send a message to him and the team. I think a benching of Rob Blake for a game would be a wake up call too, with the added benefit of letting him get a little rest.
Doug Murray…yeesh, what are you doing out there man? You look like the swedish kid from a year and a half ago, slow to the puck and chasing guys all over the place.
Poor McGinn. Less than 10 minutes in a 5-1 blowout. No trust in him, might as well send him down so he can help Worchester in the playoffs. Why not let Helminen or Vesce rot at the end of the bench.
And yeah, it might be time for one of those Herb Brooks “skate you til you die” sessions. As you guys said, its not like they worked hard during the game.
interesting note per DP…
benching top players not an option according to Tmac… OK, I guess that is his call. But I think it’s a mistake and will be scutinized this summer…
Somebody please tell me when this has happened, especially in the salary cap era?
Sean Avery was a healthy scratch earlier this year, though his contract ($2m per) is a far cry from Joe’s ($7m+ per).
Joe got benched a couple times early in his career with Boston too. I realize your point though Evil Ducks… I think what will be more scutinized though is the lack of really attempting to do much other than say…”aw shucks, it’s totally up to the players, it’s out of our hands!!”
I agree with Evil: Benching guys just isn’t an option, especially with the Sharks capped out. They can’t even bring anyone up to replace guys.
We don’t know what all he is trying. He’s cut Joe’s minutes by about 20%, which is fairly huge when you think about it. He’s dropped him to the 3rd line. He’s lowered his PP time.
That’s all pretty shocking for what is suppose to be a top flight player. That happened to Heatley and he demanded a trade. Joe got benched when he was a young kid in the NHL, in an era when there was no Salary cap and they could bring up somebody to replace him. What are we going to do? Just skate with 19 guys.
McLellan might be trying to do too much already, and he’s right, these guys need to play their way out of it if we want to have any hope of surviving in the playoffs. We can’t sit Joe, Patty and Nabby and let others carry the team and then just expect them to hop back in like nothing happened.
I think you really misunderstood the point of the quote.
Clowe was really insulting Morrow. In some ways he was saying, “Give me someone who can fight me.”
Iginla is probably exempt from the “no fighting top players thing” since he can actually fight.