More on Simon

Here's the Inquirer's Tim Panaccio on Chris Simon's suspension:

When a player swings a stick like a bat at the throat of another player, he can break the opponent's neck, collapse his windpipe, fracture the cervical spine, and cause paralysis or death. What Chris Simon did to Ryan Hollweg was criminal, regardless of the fact that Hollweg is a punk. Simon should be suspended through the next half-season. The level of violence in the NHL has reached the point where radical change must be implemented. Such as: League general managers should adopt a rule whereby the offending player gets an automatic 25-game suspension. Furthermore, if the harmed player is injured and forced to miss games, the offending player should remain inactive until the other player recovers. Under this rule, Todd Bertuzzi would be out of hockey, just as Steve Moore is right now.

Classless

That's the cleanest word I can come up with right now for how I feel about the Buffalo Sabres. Buffalo was well on it's way to victory last night against Philadelphia when I witnessed something that should have been contemptible at the least and downright inexcusable at the most.

With all of five seconds left in the third period and trailing 6-3, the Flyers were whistled for a penalty. The faceoff was in the Flyers' defensive zone, to the left of goalie Antero Niittymaki. Remember, Buffalo was winning 6-3 with five seconds left in the game. There was absolutely zero chance for the Flyers to win this game. All that was left was for the linesman to drop the puck and for the timekeeper to run off five seconds.

So, what does Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff do? He sends out his number one powerplay unit to take the draw -- with five seconds left!! The worst part is that the players actually went for it. Sabres center Daniel Briere, who, in the interest of full disclosure, is on my fantasy team, won the draw back to the point and the defenseman actually took a shot that was, thankfully, blocked.

What was the point to this? For the players, it's a chance to pad the stats. For Ruff, a chance to run up the score on a team that he's had a few run-ins with over the years. (One incident that comes to mind is when Ruff was pelted in the face with a beer after the Sabres eliminated the Flyers from the playoffs a few years back. Talk about wasting a beer.)

This whole incident displays to me the complete lack of respect and classlessness -- if that's even a word -- that the Sabres embody. Once upon a time I felt bad about the no-goal Stanley Cup loss they suffered. I could even get onboard with them in the whole small market, underdog thing they had going for awhile. Not anymore.

Combine the worst uniform/logo in all of hockey with the utter disrespect they show to their opponents and you come up with a team that deserves nothing but disdain from every self-respecting hockey fan.

POST-SCRIPT: You know what the worst part of this is? This incident didn't receive one mention in either Tim Panaccio's or Ed Moran's recount of the game. For all the talk lately of how the Flyers have started to stand up for one another, where was it last night at the end of the game? They just rolled over and took it from the Sabres. So long as that keeps happening, they have no chance of improving.

"Are you saying you want a piece of me?"

Tim Panaccio reports in this morning's Inquirer that Todd Fedoruk took a shot at teammate Joni Pitkanen in practice yesterday. Panaccio noted that things "have become tense on a club that went into the all-star break with an eight-game losing streak."

I saw footage of the incident on Comcast last night. A large group of players were milling around by the boards, while Fedoruk and Pitkanen were jawing back and forth. After a few seconds Fedoruk threw a right to Pitkanen's face, which prompted several teammates to step in the way. The biggest surprise? Pitkanen didn't even attempt to get back at Fedoruk. He took the punch and stood there, waiting to get hit again.

Interviewed after practice, Fedoruk said, "[S]omewhere along the way, this team has lost its identity of Flyers hockey and what it means to be a Flyer . . . We need to create an identity."

I, for one, would like that identity not to include standing around waiting to get punched in the face.