How Not To Make The Playoffs

lead·er·ship [lee-der-ship]

1. the position or function of a leader: He managed to maintain his leadership of the party despite heavy opposition.
2. ability to lead: She displayed leadership potential.
3. an act or instance of leading; guidance; direction: They prospered under his leadership.
4. not taking a friggin' triple minor with under seven minutes left in a 1-0 game: Donald Brashear displayed a stunning lack of leadership on Saturday afternoon.

Brash should've had the "A" ripped off his sweater before he even made it to the locker room after the game.

Pens tomorrow.

Update: "Brash's penalties were dumb," Washington coach Bruce Boudreau said. "A guy that's been in the league that long should know that."

Update: H/t to DMG for pointing out an interesting fact - see if you can pick it out from the bio of one of today's referees:

Sasha The Hooker

With last night's first period hooking penalty, Alex Semin drew to within two of the League lead in such infractions. Only Jaromir Jagr, Rick Nash and Sergei Gonchar have more hooking minors, and they have played 20, 18 and 14 more games on the season, respectively, than Semin.

BoA On The Principles Of Sentencing

Normally I don't devote a post to telling you what to go read - that's what the sidebar widget is for - but this post over at Battle of Alberta deserves a bit more of a prompt. If you're interested at all in theories of criminal justice and/or how sports leagues discipline their players, it's a must read.

Hidden Value

Versus posted the above stat when talking about today's trade which sent Sean Avery to the Rangers (as if you needed another reason to hate him). What they don't tell you (maybe because they assume you already know) is that Avery is also leading the League in minor penalties committed (and diving minors).*

Regardless, though it's unclear whether or not the stat above includes majors, it would seem as if Avery has drawn more penalties than he has committed, which would indeed speak highly to his value as an agitator.



* I believe I'm leading the blogosphere in parentheticals, by the way.

UPDATE: Since this is an Avery-related post, I guess I'm contractually obligated to link to a picture of his girlfriend and to show this video of his triple-gainer: