Sean Avery Disappears From Washington, Seen in Buffalo, Toronto, Atlanta ....

The Washington Capitals reported strategy for dealing with Sean Avery of the New York Rangers was to ignore him. He upstaged Alex Ovechkin in the Rangers win in Game 1 of their NHL playoff series and disappeared sometime during or after Game 2.

There were no stories in the media about Avery's role with the Rangers anywhere on the Internet for days after they swept Washington. That was a very strange occurrence.

Many picked the New York Rangers as the dark horse for their first round NHL playoff series with the Washington Capitals and some said that Sean Avery of the Rangers could get the Capitals off their game by getting under their skin.

That is what has happened, but Avery appears to have moved on from that role.

The only story coming out of New York was about Henrik Lundqvist being called the Rangers agitator against the Caps, instead of Avery.

"It is not the mouth and stickwork of Sean Avery that has dropped Washington into a deep hole, " Mark Herman reported in Newsday. "The real agitator has been Henrik Lundqvist.

The Rangers goalie agitated the Capitals by standing there, minding his own business, stopping their shots, and driving the Capitals up the wall, Hermann explained.

He credited Lundqvist with giving the Rangers a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series with the next two games in New York looking like it could continue the sweep.

Alex Ovechkin, Mike Green, and Alex Semin were silenced by the Rangers, blocking an incredible number of shots. Nothing has been heard of Avery since he set up a huge goal by Scott Gomez in Game 1. 

Despite taking a different role off the ice and keeping a low profile with reporters off the ice, Avery continues to make the news all around North America.

In his old hometown, the Toronto Sun used this lame joke: "Just wondering: If Sean Avery were an actor and he happened to have a role in a current box-office smash, would he be a Monster or an Alien?"

ESPN’s John Anderson had a funnier joke, claiming he carried out a survey for a hockey playoff quiz and reporting that one participant, when asked to name a Washington Capital, said, “Spokane."

Avery got a lot of attention this year for making a comment about other players’ girlfriends and now the news out of Vancouver has two Canucks, Alex Burrows and Ryan Kesler, in the same sort of trouble for their inflammatory comments about a St. Louis Blues player’s wife.

Meanwhile, in Buffalo, critics say the Sabres were too quiet this year and could have used an Avery. "No one is saying the Sabres need a loudmouth like Sean Avery in the room. But too many quiet players did lessen the Sabres. During a few off-the-record chats, some Sabres said the silence diminished their days," John Vogl reported in the The Buffalo News.

He described it this way: "Imagine getting ready to play in front of 19,000 fans, thrilled to be living in the fantasy world of a professional hockey player, you get to the rink and ... nothing. It seems no one is sharing your fun or excitement. You look left and a guy is silently lacing his skates. You look right and the teammate may as well be Charlie Chaplin or Marcel Marceau."

In New York, the probably first round draft pick is being compared to Sean Avery. "Tavares isn't exactly LeBron James when it comes to drawing power south of the border," Jeff Blair said in the Globe and Mail.

He asks, "Why on earth would he want to play hockey on a team that is at best the No. 3 team in the area, behind the New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils? Tavares wouldn't even be as popular as Sean Avery. If he wants to maximize his earning potential and land endorsements, he can do it only in Toronto."

In Atlanta today, they're still blaming Avery for their exit from last year's playoffs. Atlanta remembers when a frustrated Ilya Kovalchuk "took a run at hockey’s No. 1 irritant Sean Avery in the final seconds of the game. Avery was not only a pest on the ice, but he also scored a goal and dished an assist on the game winner that night, too." 



You can imagine what they're saying about him in Texas. Avery may be missing, but it's unlikely he went back to Dallas.