FanHouse Dean McAmmond

The New York Islanders, playing without Trent Hunter, Kyle Okposo, Dean McAmmond, and Andy Hilbert were simply in over their heads on Tuesday night against the runaway locomotive that is the Carolina Hurricanes, falling 9-0. Amazingly, the score isn't the most incredible series of numbers to come out of this game.

Honestly, we haven't seen a hockey game this one-sided since the Slovakia Women's National Team annihilated Bulgaria, 82-0, earlier this year. OK, maybe it wasn't quite that bad.

Islanders 4, Avalanche 2: Monday night was the worst case scenario for the Versus "game of the week." The only game on the NHL's schedule featured the worst team in the Western Conference, the Colorado Avalanche, taking on the worst team in the NHL, the New York Islanders.

Combine two disappointing teams with the fact New York is under a foot of snow, and you had two bad teams playing in front of about 14,000 empty seats. Oh, and the Islanders won, 4-2.

Tampa Bay Lightning prospect Steve Downie is certainly no stranger to controversy, as the 21-year-old forward has been suspended multiple times in his young career for various acts of idiocy.

On Saturday, Downie, currently playing for the Norfolk Admirals of the AHL, decided it had been too long since he did something ridiculous and was given a game misconduct during a game against the Hershey Bears for "physical abuse of an official." He's facing a 20-game suspension as a result.

Late Friday afternoon, the Islanders and Senators agreed to swap three players and a draft pick, a move that made waves across the blogosphere. The basic breakdown of the deal seemed to be Chris Campoli for a first round pick, as the other two parts -- Mike Comrie and Dean McAmmond -- were very similar. They both have contracts that expire this summer and weren't doing a whole lot of anything offensively for their teams.

Given that both teams should be trying to stockpile draft picks (let's face it, whether or not Bryan Murray knows it, that's what the Senators should be doing), they're going to be looking to trade off veteran assets of value. So, could we see McAmmond and/or Comrie get moved again before the March 4th trade deadline?

In a surprising move, the Ottawa Senators have acquired defenseman Chris Campoli and center Mike Comrie from the New York Islanders in exchange for Dean McAmmond and a first-round pick (originally belonging to San Jose) in the 2009 NHL draft, according to the Islanders website.

This move makes little sense for Ottawa, unless general manager Bryan Murray has another deal on the horizon. If he doesn't, well, then he's either under the delusion that his team, currently 13 points out of the final playoff spot, is primed to make a serious run in the final weeks of the season, or he's completely lost his mind and is trying to George Costanza his way out of a job.

For two periods Wednesday night's Penguins-Capitals tilt lived up to the hype -- and we certainly hyped it. Following some spirited trash talk between Alex Ovechkin and the Penguins bench prior to the start of the third period, Ovechkin transformed himself into a one-man wrecking crew, as he helped take over the game and lead the Capitals to a 6-3 win.

The Capitals scored four goals in the third period -- including two from Ovechkin -- as they snapped a three-game losing skid. Meanwhile, for the Penguins, the inconsistencies continued, as they failed to win back-to-back games yet again. In case you haven't been paying attention, the Penguins have not won consecutive games since the middle of November.

It was a great night of rivalries in the NHL on Tuesday, including a classic original six tilt in Boston, where the Bruins pulled out a 3-1 win over Montreal.

Tim Thomas stopped 34-of-35 shots, and even inserted himself into the rough stuff when he clobbered Montreal's Andrei Kostitsyn just moments after he sent Aaron Ward into the boards.

Kostitsyn gave the Canadiens a 1-0 lead early in the second period, until Zdeno Chara added a pair of power play goals later in the period. David Krejci put the game out of reach late in the third period, scoring 17th goal of the season, helping lead the Bruins to their third straight win. Montreal had won four in a row, and eight of its past nine entering the game.

"That was a dirty hit and he's a dirty player. He's known for that and he'll get what's coming to him next time we play him, for sure ... You don't want to see stuff like that. We're not out there to kill each other. At this level, he'll get what's coming to him."

That was Ottawa Senators winger Brian McGrattan back in September 2007, right after the Flyers' Steve Downie took out Dean McAmmond and earned a 20-game suspension that helped cement the Wachovia Center as Goon Central. The Senators and Flyers face off tonight in Philadelphia, marking the first time Downie will meet the Sens this season. The Canadian media has been treating this rematch with the quiet nuance of Tom Cruise's Scientology recruitment video, forcing McAmmond to finally throw his hands up this week, saying: "Steve Downie is writing his own story and it's ... I mean, I was part of it, but I don't want to be part of it anymore. That's all. Because every time he does something, it takes up my time. I've got kids that need to be picked up right now."

Damn. Poor guy. Poor kids. Reading that makes one hope that McGrattan follows through on his promise and at least attempts to gain a little retribution for his teammate. But while the Ottawa tough guy talked a big game last fall, he's singing a different tune before Downie Night:

"It's just another game," McGrattan told the Ottawa Sun. "I'm just going to go out and play. If it's within the rules and he's there, I will hit him ... I don't think we have to focus on (retribution). If (Downie) is there and he has the puck I'm going to hit him. I'm not going to jump him from behind and cause a huge melee. I don't think we really need that."

I'm sure a solid body check wasn't on McGrattan's mind when he paid some Marc Crawford lip service to Downie last September. Maybe time and McAmmond's exasperation have decreased his ire. Or maybe McGrattan's preaching penance to the media while preparing to unleash hell on Downie. All that's on the line is his credibility.

UPDATE: After the jump, watch what caused McGrattan's quick exit from the game -- in glorious slo-mo.

Flyers winger Steve Downie is Public Enemy #1 after his cheap shot to the head of Senators winger Dean McAmmond. While many of you might be immune to the violence that seems typical of today's NHL, there has still been much public outcry over concussions, head shots, and the fact that the NHL has done little to stem to tide of such aggression.

One bright spot in this story is that Downie took the time to phone McAmmond to apologize, and McAmmond accepted. Some players don't even bother with such a step. It shows a little class, at least, that Downie recognizes that he really hurt someone in a bad way.

"I just said thanks for the call and I'm going to choose to believe that he is sincere about it," said McAmmond in front of Ottawa reporters on Thursday morning.

Don't think, however, that this means McAmmond doesn't want Downie to feel the wrath of a long suspension. While Dean's words were chosen carefully, Sens coach John Paddock wasn't holding back about what he feels should happen to Downie.

Ottawa head coach John Paddock was even more direct about his demands for a suspension against Downie - a player with a reputation for playing on the edge at the junior level.

"For the good of Steve Downie, he needs to be suspended for a long time," said Paddock. "For him to be in the NHL when he's 24, the best thing for the league to do is to take it away from him for a while. We all know his history in the OHL. Hockey is the most important thing to him. So take it away from him."

For those who don't know, Steve Downie was involved with a rather disgusting hazing incident, known as "The Hot Box", during his junior hockey days. Along with racial slurs and cheap hits, Downie is the type of bad-boy Sean Avery-type of player that personifies the ugly side of hockey, yet earns him praise within the old-school hockey crowd because of his "grit and toughness".

The NHL has missed many opportunities to send the right message, and should not waste this one like they have so many others. A 5-game or 10-game suspension just won't be enough to show players that the NHL is serious about cracking down on career-threatening cheap shots.

So what if Downie is likely go to the AHL? Force the AHL to honor the suspension, and make it at least 30 games. Depriving Downie of professional hockey until at least Christmas is, perhaps, the only way he'll ever get the message to smarten up. Do you really think he's going to be all that sad about a 2-week vacation? No, but give him a few months away from the sport he loves, WITHOUT PAY, and maybe he'll start to feel bad about the situation he put himself into.

It would also help if the Flyers, an organization notorious for dirty hockey, would not back up 'their kid' so much and let him know that this type of hit is not tolerable. There is a fine line between hard-hitting hockey and cheap shots, and Downie crossed it by a country mile.

Just a few days after the Orange County Register published a series of stories on concussions and the NHL, last night's preseason schedule gave us a prime example of the sort of hit that we shouldn't be seeing anymore when Philadelphia's Steve Downie took out Ottawa's Dean McAmmond:

As FanHouse's own James Mirtle opined:

I'm frankly growing tired of the fact that providing daily NHL coverage consists of an almost weekly guess-the-suspension-length game, something that really should be more like clockwork than a random judgement based on Colin Campbell's whim of the day. Too many players are having their careers ended unnecessarily, and the fact this particular hit occurred during preseason, in my mind, makes it all the more unnecessary, all the more careless and worthy of punishment.

What makes this all the more agonizing is that McAmmond is well known as an NHL good guy, and this hit comes on the heels of just the same sort of cheap shot that he suffered in the Stanley Cup Finals at the hands of Chris Pronger. Here's hoping he's ok.

Previously on FanHouse:
In Praise of Dean McAmmond
Pronger: No Conn for this Conn
High Fives Labor Day Special: Top 5 Hardest Working NHL Journeymen