That was the observation of Capitals Coach Bruce Boudreau on the matter of David Koci last evening after the latter ended Mike Green's evening last night with a hit from behind that left Green with a mangled face and cloudy memory. He was describing what he felt was the typical night for Koci as an NHL player. Coach Boudreau hit it on the nose. Why, just within the last eight games for the Avalanche...
November 28th -- First shift of the game, gets into a scrap with Minnesota's John Scott (2:23 into the game). Koci would skate four more shifts (none in the third period) and finish with 4:04 in ice time.
December 5th -- Third shift of the game, gets into a bout with Columbus' Mike Commodore (11:28 into the first period). Koci would not skate another shift, finished with 1:12 of ice time for the evening.
December 13th -- First shift of the game, gets into a fight with Brian McGrattan of the Flames (1:52 into the game). It would be the only shift Koci would get, and he would finish with two seconds of ice time. I will repeat that... he finished with two seconds of ice time. Did he even take a shower afterward?
December 15th -- A marathon by Koci's standards, he made it into the second period. There, he boarded Mike Green (ending the defenseman's evening), upon which he was confronted by John Erskine (15:28 into the period). With majors for boarding and fighting, plus a game misconduct, Koci's evening was complete with eight shifts taken and 4:52 in ice time.
Four games, four fights, a major for boarding, a game misconduct.
Four games, 17 shifts, 10:10 in total ice time, and the Avalanche split the four decisions (one of the losses coming in a shootout).
After the game, Coach Boudreau asked rhetorically, "[he] gets into his fight and then he sits at the end of the bench, so what good is he?"
Draw your own conclusions.
4 comments:
Maybe his point is to take runs at players that have skill. Koci was the guy who "finished his check" on Gonchar to injure him last year. And it took Koci a solid 2-3 seconds to lumber over and do it.
Now with what he did to Green, the league needs to address this. The only way Koci should be in an NHL arena should be if he buys a ticket. Let the players who can actually play stock the NHL, not these clowns.
Yeah, not good. So why all the calls for the CAPS to have there own Koci like emforcer /goon?
According to the AVS blog, Anderson and Duschene are being run all the time, and they dont even want Koci to play and hope he gets suspended.
Dont see how having an enforcer keeps Koci from running Green last night, or Giroux from being blindsided, or Bradley from being sucker punched.
Woudnt stepped up team physicality on a nightly basis suffice as a deterrent?
>>>"Woudnt stepped up team physicality on a nightly basis suffice as a deterrent?"
Probably not. Players like Koci can't be deterred. They're there for the reason that Peerless fully illustrated--to take runs at the other team's key players and possibly hurt them. And that's a coaching decision. The only way to deter that is to target their key players (risking suspensions for your guys or escalating the situation on the ice) or have the league begin to pressure teams not to carry clear cheapshot artists (and I'm not sure anybody wants to open that can o' worms).
Personally, I love the way Boudreau makes other teams pay when they do something that pisses him off: on the scoresheet.
Of course, sooner or later, someone will get it into their heads that he's running up the score, which he doesn't like to do when the game's being played fairly.
I think a few more blowouts against teams that take runs at the Caps will hopefully teach them a valuable lesson: don't do this - you'll just awaken a sleeping dragon and piss it off!
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