After watching the mayhem that was the Islanders-Penguins
game last night I could not help but wonder which if any New York Rangers would
have done what Godard did in coming off the bench to defend their goaltender if
a goon challenged Martin Biron or heaven forbid Henrik Lundqvist to a
fight. Before I get to that I want to
say that while Godard will get a ten game suspension and lose a lot of money
for what he did, he was absolutely right in doing to defend his goaltender from
a cowardly move by “tough guy.” In fact,
his teammates should all get together and make up for the lost salary he is
about to incur for doing the right thing.
It is likely that Brent Johnson did not need the help in the situation,
but regardless no player should ever challenge a goalie to a fight and no
player on the goalie’s team should allow it to go down.
In terms of the Rangers, one would love to think that any
and every player would gladly hop off the bench if that scenario played itself
out. In trying to come up with the guys
we thought could do it, one had to take into account who has done similar
things in sticking up for teammates thus far this season. With that in mind in thinking about it and
discussing it with other Bill Gordon
aka @UndeRadar and Kevin DeLury of The
New York Rangers Blog last night we could only come up with three players
on the roster we were sure would do it.
Can you guess the three we came up with?
Brandon Prust: The
most obvious to everyone was Prust. All
season long Prust has taken on all comers and been the man to exact some form
of retribution if a player on his team was run.
There is no way I could imagine Prust sitting idly by as a situation
like that unfolds.
Brandon Dubinsky:
While certainly not a fighter, if you at different situations this season, when
Dubinsky has been on the ice and someone has taken liberties with a member of
his team, Brandon has been the first one in there looking to take a piece of
the guy. There have been times where it
has come back to hurt the team when he has taken a penalty for it, but those
situations lead me to believe that he would have been one of those guys that
definitely would have volunteered for the assignment without thought to the
consequences.
Michael Sauer: A guy that I had overlooked, but Bill
mentioned was Michael Sauer and he is absolutely right. Sauer has shown over the year that he does
not allow for anyone to take liberties on him, his teammates or his
goaltenders. If there is one Rangers
defender that has stuck up for his goalies in terms of clearing the crease and
mixing it up with opposition players taking shots after the whistle, it is
Sauer.
Anyone we forgot? Anyone
on the list you don’t think would do it?
