There is no debate that Matt Cooke is a dirty
player with a history of plays that go beyond the bounds of clean play, but
there is certainly no player that plays the innocent as well as Cooke
does. Yesterday was the latest in the
line of plays that crossed the line when Cooke intentionally stuck his knee out
to take out Alex Ovechkin.
Cooke after the game said: "I
just checked the puck. He tried to cut back on me, and we clipped skates."
That is hilarious considering their skates were nowhere near one another.
"It's not like it's his first rodeo. He's done it to everybody and then
he goes to the ref and says, 'What did I do?' He knows damn well what he did.
There's no doubt in my mind that he's good at it and he knows how to pick this
stuff. And we, as a League, buy into this like it's an accidental thing."
At some point the league will punish Cooke or someone on another team will be the one that does it one has to assume. Sad because Cooke has skill to be a very solid contributor, but this is what people remember about him. The fact that on Versus tonight neither Jones or Milbury had the guts to call him dirty and then Milbury sought to justify the move because Ovechkin has done it is atrocious. Ovehckin's were dirty and illegal when he did them and so is Cooke's now.
