Puck Daddy's Summer of Disappointment Series

[PuckinUgly57]

Picking on rookies sure is playing for your team.

So is beating up Corey Perry when your team is about to lose 6-2 to send a message for the next game (Jan 28, 2006).

I don't condone what he did to Brown, and honestly I am happy he was traded when he was but while he was here, he played for the colors and stood up for his teammates. On top of that he was a solid player, he wasn't just a goon going out there being useless.

The antics I could do without, but he helped the Kings in many ways while he was here. I's really too bad he couldn't keep his head under control, he was a very effective and upper end third liner.

Avery was about him self, and about the same or worse than the guys you don't seem to like.

Like I said, those two clowns are anything but team players. Neither would do what Avery did to Perry because they simply would accept the losing. There is a much longer track record of that with Ovechkin, and Subban is more interested in Montreal partying than winning his team anything.

Talent or not, I would not welcome either one on this team because they don't have a team concept bone in their body. There have been guys who passed through LA with less talent and bigger hearts (Kostopoulos for example) who were worth more than these guys on a character level, and that is what wins you titles.

 

[Psych3man]

While I agree with Puck on most things and have learned a lot from him over the years, I do not agree with him regarding Avery. I think Puck sees what Avery could have been if he wasn't such a fucked in the head divisive dick. He certainly had balls on the ice and stuck up for teammates in a way Kings culture did not do in those days.

But he was extremely divisive in the clubhouse, and on the new Kings Stanley Cup DVD (which is excellent, much better than the one in 2012) it is talked about on many occasions how important character in the dressing room is to the Kings success under Lombardi/Sutter. When Bob Miller said Avery was his least favorite King because of his off-ice behavior that says it all.

 

[PuckinUgly57]

Avery was definitely a polarizing figure in the organization. The Kings took a chance on him starting with Taylor, and it's obvious after Dumbo came on board he valued character and integrity much more than Taylor seemed to, which was high as it was. I think Dumbo saw the talent Avery had and hung on to see if he could clean his act up but when it became apparent he would not, talent did not trump character and he was shipped out.

An interesting thing I noticed when Avery was here was his last contract in LA, where he went from making $1.1 million in 2006-07 to $1.9 million in 2007-08. He scored 33 points in 2006-07, so a bump was due, but an $800,000 raise (42% increase) seems extremely high for a guy like him. My theory is Dumbo sat him down, told him he was not welcome in the organization anymore and that he was going to move him. In return, he would give him a monster raise and all Avery had to do was go out and play hard and stay out of the media, which he did, which in turn increased (or at the very least did not hurt) his trade value. The return wasn't great (Marc-Andre Cliche? Was that it?) but it was win-win for both Avery and LA by subtraction.

My buddy at work sent me a link to a radio blog or whatever that Avery does and it was during the playoffs, he said some pretty funny crap on there.

 

[PuckinUgly57]

Ovechkin thinks very little of plus/minus:

Ovechkin thinks very little of plus/minus | ProHockeyTalk

Shocker.

=)~~

These are the little things I point out about his lack of desire to win. Sure, it's a skewed stat and I think watching players over time gives you a true understanding of whether they are defensively solid or not compared to simply using plus/minus, but he openly admits "I don't care".

This is also why he will never win anything; the greats are always improving their game, no matter what it is, to be a better player. This guy is a slug who is completely happy scoring 94 goals a season and getting the media spotlight for that and his retarded celebrations rather than improving, paying the price and winning that chalice.

 

[Deader2818]

He stopped doing "retarded celebrations" years ago.

Speaking of which, did you like it when Avery scored that goal and then did push ups on the ice?

 

[davnlaguna]

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-p...zcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA2dxMQR2dGlkA1RBVVMwNTVfMQ--

 

[pete6835]

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-p...zcgRwb3MDMQRjb2xvA2dxMQR2dGlkA1RBVVMwNTVfMQ--

 

[Deader2818]

If I remember right what killed us in 05-06 was the Olympics. I remember Frolov and Demtira both getting hurt during and thats when the free fall started.

 

[histkng23]

Thats a good point, had forgotten that detail about the 05-06 team with all the injuries that seemed to happen at the Olympics. But the team was in good shape through December, even with Mathieu Garon winning Goalie of The Month for December. But Andy Murray's tactics started to wear on the team by March, because the last 3 years he coached, each team would to go into a tailspin the last 20 games and fall out of the playoffs.

I felt the most disappointing team was the 02-03 team because they had the LAPD line intact and had come off a previous season where they had the best record from mid-December yet lost game 7 in Colorado, and they seemed ready to be a dominant team that season, only to lose Allison & Deadmarsh by mid-December and the team just collapsed after that. Another team that disappointed was the '98-99 team that everyone thought the Kings would have built on from the '98 team that lost to the Blues. But we all learned things the hard way like Craig Johnson's 17 goals in '98 were a major fluke, and Sandy Mooger sucked, and that Jamie Storr was never going to be a franchise goalie!

One crack on the article about the Kings though was the loss to the Sharks in 2011 was in the 1st round, not the 2nd, but that thats just details...

 

[PuckinUgly57]

He stopped doing "retarded celebrations" years ago.

He's still a showboater, no secret. I wouldn't know anyway because I got tired of watching himself act like an ass 6 years into being a potential annual 50 goal scorer.

Speaking of which, did you like it when Avery scored that goal and then did push ups on the ice?

Not one bit. It was humorous for a second, but then you see how he is disrespecting the game and it doesn't settle well.

 

[PuckinUgly57]

If I remember right what killed us in 05-06 was the Olympics. I remember Frolov and Demtira both getting hurt during and thats when the free fall started.

They hit the skids starting Jan 1, 2006; the injuries after the Olympics just made it worse.

On Dec 31, 2005 the Kings were 25-14-2 (.634) - 52 points, 1st place in the WC. From 1/1/06 to 2/12/06 (pre Olympics), they went 7-9-3 (.447) and after the Olympics 3/2/06 to 4/17/06 they went 10-12-2 (.458). Frolov had a groin (I think? Or am I just saying that because that's always what he had) and Demitra got a broken eye socket or something at the Olympics. Those two with Craig Conroy were a pretty good first line that season for the most part.

So if you look at those three segments of the season, they were in steady decline the second that clock hit 2006. Split in two 41 game increments (coincidentally Game 41 was Dec 31, 2005) their record the first half was 25-14-2 (.634) and the second half was 17-21-3 (.451).

Brutal.