This week's Sean Avery/Dion Phaneuf/Elisha Cuthbert dustup may be the end of Avery's short time in Dallas.
As Eric McErlain noted Wednesday, the Stars appear to be at least exploring the possibility of ridding themselves of Avery. This comes after he signed a four-year deal in the summer. That deal is worth a guaranteed $15.5 million, and it makes the next step a difficult one to discern.
For now, the Stars need not do anything. Avery's suspension absolves them of any responsibility to make "the next move".
No matter how you look at the future, the Avery signing has been an unmitigated disaster. Perhaps the Stars should have done a bit more checking into Avery's past behavior.
"I'm one of those people that once I'm comfortable and get to know a person, I open up," (Los Angeles King Dustin) Brown said. "Hockey was the easy part, but fitting in socially with an older team was hard." Add Sean Avery, who often selected Brown to ridicule. Brown has had a slight lisp since childhood. "I can talk without it," he said, "but I have to really think about it. When I try to think about it, I feel uncomfortable." It was something that Brown said was unimportant, but Avery would mock his speech, among other things. The friction in the room resulted in fist fights, with other Kings players jumping in on Brown's side.
Does this sound like the kind of guy you would want around your locker room, especially for $15.5 million guaranteed?
Now, I've come down on Sean Avery's side before. I've been very clear about the fact that I like Avery as a player. He gets into people's heads (well, especially Brodeur). He goes into the tough areas and isn't afraid of the punishment he'll receive for going there. It's not always easy to find players who go to the net over and over again, knowing they are going to take some hits for doing it.
However, there is no denying that Avery is a volatile personality. He mixes it up in his own dressing room as much as he does on the ice. He is highly skilled at rubbing people the wrong way.
So how did he end up in Dallas? The Dallas Morning News' Mike Heika offers a little insight.
Avery was signed as a free agent this summer to a four-year, $15.5 million contract. The contract is guaranteed, but there are ways the Stars can reduce their cost. While Hull was the person who pushed for the signing, both co-GM Les Jackson and owner Tom Hicks signed off on the deal. So there is much blame to go around.
I can't find anything on how involved others in the organization were in the signing of Avery, but it's clear that anyone else who may have signed off on the idea are regretting it now. It's pretty tough to find any support in the organization for Avery, as evidenced by the remarks made by goaltender Marty Turco and coach Dave Tippett after Tuesday's win in Calgary.
Tippett also revealed a big reason for his frustration with Avery.
"It's frustrating for me to go out and defend the guy," Tippett said. "It's disappointing, because in the morning with all the stuff going on in the media, I approached Sean and asked him if he was going to talk to media; he told me, no. He talked to our PR people and he told them, no, he wasn't going to talk to the media ... and to have a calculated response like that ... it was a calculated statement for what I feel was personal gain."
While I can't defend Avery lying to his coach, I'm still failing to understand why the league is wetting themselves over something like this. Adam Footestill hasn't played since John Zeiler tried to behead him at Staples Center.
I'm not a fan of equating offenses, because I do understand the real world doesn't work that way. However, how can the league justify Avery's suspension lasting longer than Zeiler's? Is "sloppy seconds" really a bigger blow to the league's image than the continuing issue of player safety?
As for Avery's apparently ruined relationship with the Stars, there is a pretty important lesson that has to come out of something like this.
Buyer beware.
The free-agent market was slimming down considerably, and the Stars felt they had to make a major splash in order to remain competitive atop the Western Conference. Instead of trying to understand how a guaranteed $15.5 million deal to a guy like Avery could disrupt a solid locker room, Hull and friends jumped at the chance to get a headline player in Dallas.
While I understand Tippett being mad at Avery for talking to the media after saying he wouldn't, I have to think there are other internal factors at work here. You don't go from supporting a player to wanting him out over "sloppy seconds". And if Avery isn't fitting in, the onus goes back to management. They're the ones who brought in the bad fit and backed up the Brinks truck to do it.
Next time, perhaps the organization thinks twice before they pay big to sign a guy who makes headlines and draws attention to himself. There are plenty of examples in sports of this type of player, and they rarely help their teams win championships, even if they are surrounded by veteran leaders who are hungry to win (Plaxico Burress is a rare exception here). That's not to say Sean Avery isn't a valuable player. He proved he was with the Rangers. However, the Rangers had so many level-headed veterans, and Avery wasn't asked to be a first-line player for them. He could be his agitating self without slaughtering the team's chemistry.
In Dallas, injuries to Sergei Zubov and Brenden Morrow have changed Avery's role. Suddenly, he's expected to produce. But is that a fair expectation of a guy with 177 points and over 1,100 penalty minutes in over 400 career NHL games? He's a fourth-line guy who can get power-play time because he'll go park himself in front of the net. Try to make him more than that, and you're likely to set yourself up with a distraction. That's exactly what Dallas has done. They're trying to turn a guy with a tad more offensive upside than Craig Weller into something he isn't.
If Tom Hicks has to suck it up and buy out another big contract, as he's done many times with the Stars and baseball's Texas Rangers, it's no one's fault but his own. I'd say that he might learn from the experience, but it's obvious he won't, because he's done this before and will probably do it again.
Sean Avery's Signing Was a Disaster, but Don't Feel for Dallas Stars originally appeared on NHL FanHouse on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 12:05:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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