Do it again and you get all that, AND you get to sit out for a game.
Dallas Stars’ defenseman Esa Lindell was acting like he treated those memos from the league office as spam.
Lindell, 24, was third among Dallas defensemen in scoring during the regular season, and drew only 33 penalty minutes. Late in the second period of Tuesday’s Game Three against the St. Louis Blues, Lindell not only got two minutes for diving, but a pair of eights for his Olympic-style flopping behind the Dallas net.
Lindell was involved with Blues’ defenseman Robert Bortuzzo, who was making his first appearance in the series. Lindell was not involved in the scrum for the puck going on in the corner, to the left of Stars’ netminder Ben Bishop, and was inciting Bortuzzo to draw a penalty. Blues defenseman Carl Gunnarson had just been sent to the box for a two-minute high-sticking call seconds earlier.
Bortuzzo had a couple of stiff bumps, and a cross-check to the left arm of Lindell. Then with his team down 2-1, Lindell began to fall as if Bortuzzo’s stick was made out of cement, trying to make the advantage two men on the power play.
Lindell fell once, and got back up. He was bumped again by Bortuzzo, and flopped again. The second time he dove almost head-first towards the end boards, hoping to draw a larger penalty out of Bortuzzo. Finally the officials saw enough, and blew the play dead. Bortuzzo was sent off for cross checking, and blasted Lindell in the chest with a two-handed shove. Lindell then fell faster than a Super Punch Out power punch.
The third fall garnered only a six from the Russian judges. Just about any non-Stars’-affiliated media outlet is either laughing at or crucifying Lindell of his actions. Blues’ radio play-by-play announcer Chris Kerber said,
“Put him in the box for being Greg Louganis….what an absolute farce!”For Kerber, one of the NHL’s most unbiased radio announcers for any team to call a travesty, you have to see the video to know just how egregious the act was.
Whether the fault was Stars’ head coach Jim Rutherford advising his players to try to earn a power play, or if Lindell went into business for himself, this is the kind of incident that can mar the Stanley Cup playoffs, would it have worked. Thankfully the Blues prevailed 4-3, to take a 2-1 series lead in their Western Conference semifinal matchup.
I do not say “thankfully” as a die-hard Blues fan, but more so as the crap that Lindell pulled has no business in the sport. Dallas won their lone Stanley Cup in 1999, on the merit of Brett Hull’s skate in the crease. Should they win this season, this call could have been the turning point, again had Dallas earned and scored on a power play.
Hopefully the NHL takes action by a fine, and warn the remainder of all teams left in the playoffs that any more instances like what happened on Tuesday night might very well warrant a suspension. We saw all four division winners go out in the first round, including the President's Trophy Winner get swept. All four wild card teams have at least one win in the second round. It would be a shame if the rest of the greatest Stanley Cup Playoffs in any recent memory became iconic for this act.
Lindell was not even done with the diving. He flopped in the final two minutes of the third period, with the game tied 3-3. This time Pat Maroon scored a second later to give the Blues the 4-3 win. It was about as close as you can come to poetic justice, as the grace and class Lindell showed could be considered only a half step up from the fish at the end of Faith No More’s “Epic” video.
I cannot wait to see what he has in store for Game Four tonight, and I mean I hope he becomes hockey’s equivalent of a chalk-outline if he tries it again.
-JC24