The writer’s comments are spot on.  Ott was a gutless puke in this game.  You can get under a player’s skin without trying to injure them.  And Ott did it twice!  What’s even worse is he wasn’t whistled for a penalty either time.  So let the referees reward dirty play and penalize the on-ice justice that follows.  The best part of all of this is that it was Ott’s teammates that had to pay for his cheap play.  Niskanen (I believe) took a beating from Hnidy and Barch had to answer Thornton’s bell because Ott was to chicken S to do it.  Ultimately this leads to a disruption in team chemistry as evidenced by Modano’s comments.  If a leader goes public with comments God only knows what is NOT being said.  In the long run, Ott has to be a big boy and drop the gloves every now and then.  Even that little terd Patrick Kaleta takes his lumps from time to time.

Posted by Sig from DC on 11/03/08 at 02:11 PM ET

He wasn’t penalized for either of the submarine hits because they weren’t illegal, and they weren’t even close to injuring either player. Andrew Ference said so himself in comments after the game. Even Claude Julien said it was no big deal, that the Stars had tried to get nasty with the Bruins and the Bruins had simply responded, and that’s all there really was to it.

I agree Ott should have chucked his gloves at some point, if not Thornton then definitely Hnidy or Ference. I speculate that Ott is more hesitant to fight now than he used to be because he missed most of a season with a fluke ankle injury that occurred during a fight.

Regardless, Avery went with Ference and Barch went with Thornton, which is a bit of a mismatch. And yeah, Niskanen, who is not a fighter, was unfairly targeted by Hnidy when he came in to hold back yet another Bruin from jumping Avery in the big dogpiile at the end of the game.

But mostly I believe the homer PxP call of Jack Edwards made things sound a lot, lot worse than they really were.

Posted by Mojo Tooth on 11/04/08 at 03:45 AM ET