I find this quote by Sharks forward Raffi Torres to be interesting. Torres much like Cooke has cleaned up his act and has been a major contributor to the San Jose Sharks.
Nicholas Goss, NESN --- (Matt) Cooke’s history of dirty hits, fines and suspensions has made him one of the most hated players in the league among fans. San Jose Sharks forward Raffi Torres, who also has multiple suspensions on his NHL resume, doesn’t like all the criticism Cooke has received since Monday’s incident. “I think he’s done a heck of a job the last couple of seasons to re-establish his game,” Torres said.
Tuesday, per ESPN.com’s Pierre LeBrun. “But with the media getting involved and especially social media, they make him out to be a serial killer. It’s kind of painful when you have to read that kind of stuff. I’m sure his family and close friends have to read that kind of stuff.
Holy Cow! Are you kidding me? The dive by Canucks forward Ryan Kessler was worse than I had originally thought it was... If you watch the video you will see that San Jose Sharks forward Ryan Clowe barely touched Ryan Kessler who then flops to the ice like he has been shot.... If you noticed the announcers didn't spend a lot of time talking about the Clowe love tap either, also look how concerned Kessler's teammates were as well, they knew. What a fraud!!! This Vancouver Canucks team is a bunch of phonies that looked like they spent last summer taking acting and drama classes. These clown Vancouver Canucks throw their head back any time they are touched by the San Jose Sharks.
SJS Jamie McGinn has disciplinary hearing with NHL this afternoon for hit on VAN's Aaron Rome.
So in your opinion is this hit worthy of a suspension? Based on what the NHL has let go in the playoffs I wouldn't be surprised if no suspension is giving on the hit.
While it's no mystery that San Jose Sharks forward Ben Eager is a bit of a meat head and had a very rough game last night and he could be looking at a suspension from the NHL after he smoked Daniel Sedin from behind with an unneeded vicious boarding penalty. Eager looked like he was going to come unhinged on the San Jose Sharks players bench last night following the Kevin Bieksa and Patrick Marleau fight, all things considered Eager does have a valid point; Kevin Bieksa does like to go after the opposition's talented guys that don't fight and shies away from fighting the heavy weights and though guys that are known for racking up fighting majors and penalty minutes in the NHL. In case anyone forgot, Kevin Bieksa went after a non fighter in Chicago Blackhawks forward Viktor Stalberg during the first round of the NHL playoffs.
"We've seen that before with Kevin," said Ben Eager. "It's sad that someone's gonna sign him for big money when he's a phony. He goes after our top players. He's been asked many times, by lots of players throughout the League (to fight), and he's declined."
So it would appear that the Vancouver sports writers might have short memories when it comes to their beloved player hack Kevin Bieksa. While Eager might like the moral high ground in this situation and is a documented meat head, a bit of a loose cannon and acted like an unhinged psychopath that cost his team a power play goal, by taking an unneeded penalty and frankly should be watching game three from the press box. Seriously, you can’t really take him to task for speaking the truth, can you? Even if the Vancouver Media and fans have a short memory, it's a proven fact that Kevin Bieksa does pick his spots when it comes to fighting, so the Vancouver Canucks beat writers and fans might want to take their blue, green, silver, white goggles off when looking at this situation.
Eager, of course, couldn’t leave it at that, and after taking 20 minutes in penalties and damaging his team’s chances to win, he called Bieksa a phony in the post-game locker room, accusing him of picking his spots and not fighting the real tough guys.
“I’m not going to say too much about that,” said Bieksa. “Right now, my focus is on winning the series, and if they want to worry about that kind of stuff, that’s to our advantage. Our power play did a great job tonight of making them pay for some of their penalties.”
I think it's safe to say that this series is going to get more exciting going into games three and four in San Jose. It will also be interesting to see if the Sharks can at least put up a fight and contest this series and not just let the Canucks take them to the woodshed.
