Here’s the breakdown on that altercation between the Red Wings' goalie Chris Osgood and the Dallas Stars' star:
In the last seconds of a game that was all but over, Mike Ribeiro charged from the blue line toward Detroit’s goal. He veered off to the left, and Osgood angled his stick at him, clipping Ribeiro in the jaw. Understandably pissed, Ribeiro slashed Osgood on the collar.
Stars’ goalie Marty Turco called Osgood’s butt-end a “gutless play.” Cut the angst, Marty—you of all players are in no position to criticize others after your performance in that game.
Osgood said he didn’t mean to butt-end Ribeiro. Then he explained why he did mean to do it.
After witnessing a mugging of Kris Draper, Osgood probably thought Ribeiro was taking a run at Detroit captain Nicklas Lidstrom (Actually, it was Bryan Rafalski behind the net.). It is unlikely that Ribeiro was trying to put Rafalski on a stretcher, but it is likely that he was trying to send a physical message for the next game.
Ribeiro’s slash was flagrant as all get-out. Yes, goalies are well padded. But not on the side of the neck, which is dangerously close to where Ribeiro’s two-hander came. He could have been trying to chop Osgood’s head off.
j/k
Sort of.
But in the battles of hockey rhetoric, all we ever have are the results and not the intentions. The league handled it well. That said, it is likely that Darren McCarty and Mike Ribeiro (if he has a sense of accountability) will fight each other in the early stages of this game.
And I don’t mean to disparage the fine play of Darren McCarty, but his five-minute absence from the ice will hurt the Wings far less than Ribeiro’s will hurt the Stars.
The bottom line is, clichéd as it may sound, that nobody is an angel. Especially after taking a butt-end to the face.
3 comments Last one added about 1 year ago — Leave a Comment
Francois Gendron about 1 year ago
To the neck... come on. You should buy new glasses.
Ribeiro hitted Osgood around the ribs area.
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Jim Swanson about 1 year ago
I can only respond as a goalie myself and say that in defense of Ozzie I have done the same thing to help protect a teammate from taking a full-on hit into the boards. Did Ozzie intend to hit Riberio with his stick, probably not, but he did. I was always coached to get in the way of the opponent so the clean run at a guy. When you do that sometimes you get hit or you run into someone. That is a part of the game. I understand Riberio reacting in that way, you're frustrated, you're team is getting beat, you get hit in the face with the butt end of a stick you're going to react. My big problem is with Ozzie falling down like a dog playing dead. I have a problem with goalies diving and trying to get penalties. If it were me, and I have done this, I would've went atfer Riberio. It is great that you're teammates stick up for you, but sometimes you have to stick up for yourself.
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Ryan Leng about 1 year ago
Well, I went out and bought a new pair of glasses and watched the replay again. He hit Ozzie on the collarbone. You know, "the collarbone's connected to the... neck bone..." Whatever part of the anatomy you want to call it, a slash up high like that is pretty terrible. But I chopped a kid in the jaw when I was fifteen after he jabbed me in the crotch. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, or so the saying goes. Ribeiro was provoked and he's not a dirty player for what he did.
I watched the replay and Ribeiro was still on Detroit's blue line with two and half seconds left. There was no way he was gonna score, so I think there's a good chance he was going after Rafalski. But that's old time hockey and there's nothing wrong with that as long as you hit him clean and there's time left. And yeah, Ozzie played dead. Or maybe, after a hard game, he was just really tired and flabbergasted that Ribeiro did that. My point was that intentions always elude us. It didn't even seem like Ozzie could remember what he intended to do.
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