Sean Avery: A Joker Lost in the Discard Pile

The fate of our favorite Rangers' expatriate, Sean Avery, twists in a bitter Bettman breeze. It would be nice to see him back on the ice, but our former New York messiah has become an NHL pariah. Speculation on the fate of the 'Grate One' abounds. The idea of Avery coming back to New York is absurd.

The Yahoo Puck Daddy, Greg Wyshynski, neatly summarizes the reasons Avery won't be prancing on Broadway:

Five reasons why the Rangers don't need Sean Avery:

1. The Real Rangers Needs.
2. What the Stars Want.
3. The Years.
4. The Distraction.
5. Finally, There Is No Messiah for the Rangers...
   
   [Larry] Brooks is right: The Rangers need to play more like Sean Avery. But it doesn't necessarily mean they need Sean Avery to do it.

Using a poker metaphor the Rangers are 'short stacked' and the cards are not running very good. It looks like the Rangers are now betting big money with a 'small pair' (Gomez and Drury) and with no face cards (Redden, Naslund, or Rozsival) showing up. Zherdev is certainly a wild card, possibly an ace, but he has nothing to get matched up with.

Adding an Avery joker to the Rangers hand won't help. At most you'll have someone smiling or leering back at you from a very weak head.

It now looks like Renney and his big bluff strategy (defense without defensive players) is getting smelled out by the league. The Renney-ites will say that he's been here before and he'll pull things out in January.

The odds don't look good for the Rangers.

related:
Ryan McFadden / The Bleacher Report:
Do The Rangers Need Sean Avery?

Dallas Stars blog:
Are you missing Sean Avery?

RangerPundit:
The Sean Avery File

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