Laviolette fails to practice what he preaches - 04-19-12
This is like picking out a single smoldering diaper out of a raging dumpster fire, but bear with us.
Back on April 1, this happened:
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Penguins center Joe Vitale hit Flyers right winger Daniel Briere at the end of a one-sided 6-4 win by the Flyers at Consol Energy Center. That touched off a five-on-five skirmish between the teams and even had the coaches jawing at each other.
After the game, Flyers coach Peter Laviolette said, "Those guys hadn't played in 12 minutes, that's a gutless move by their coach. It's gutless."
Laviolette refused to answer any other questions regarding the brawl so that left us to surmise that in his world, fourth-line players should not be on the ice after a gap of 12 minutes of one-sided games.
For the record, Penguins left winger Arron Asham went 12:08 between shifts before that skirmish. Vitale and right winger Craig Adam had gaps of 7:17.
The ice time for the Penguins that day can be viewed here.
Flash forward to last night. With his team down 9-3 late in the second period, Flyers left winger Zac Rinaldo came off the bench to contribute this to the Flyers' effort:
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Take a guess how long Rinaldo went between shifts before that?
That certainly surpasses the 12-minute barrier Laviolette presumably has issue with in regards to players of Rinaldo's caliber in the latter stages of a one-sided game.
Is it gutless? We'll let Laviolette's words speak for themselves.
But we will say it's hypocritical. If Laviolette truly has issue with fourth-line players being used in such situations, he should keep Rinaldo planted on the bench.
Granted, Laviolette's "gutless" comments came after an emotional game where one of his star players was injured. So one probably shouldn't expect him to offer a composed response.
Regardless, Rinaldo was out there to no other reason but to "send a message" to borrow hockey parlance. His messages just happen to be delivered with dangerous hits from behind and a two-handed blow to the face.
And that message makes Laviolette look like a humongous hypocrite today.
(Photo: Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)