Avery In The AHL: From the Mighty Ducks to the Wolf Pack, Via the Wings & Kings

For the record, this is the story of Sean Avery in the AHL.

He has gone from the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks to the Hartford Wolf Pack, via the Red Wings, Kings, Rangers and Stars.

In six games in the AHL, after being suspended for six games by the NHL and not invited back, playing for the Hartford Wolf Pack, Sean Avery has a game tying goal, an assist on a game winning goal in overtime, and just one penalty.

The PIM statistic is incredible. The first time Avery played in the AHL, he had 304 minutes in penalties. This time, he has two.

The first time he played in the AHL, Avery was with the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks.

When he went undrafted after four impressive years in the OHL, he drove down to Detorit, got himself a try-out and won a solid contract as a free agent with the Red Wings.

In his rookie year, the Wings won the Stanley Cup.

An undrafted OHL player making a Stanley Cup winning team is incredible. On his first shift in the NHL, he got into a fight with Trevor Linden.

In his rookie year, he also played for the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks; the Red Wings affiliate team, shared with Anaheim.

The next year, he played the full season with the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks and racked up 304 PIM.

After that, he led the NHL in PIMs for two-years, playing for the Kings.

From the Wings and the Kings, Avery went to the New York Rangers. In New York, he cut down on penalties by 65 percent.

Instead of taking a lot of penalties, he turned himself into the kind of guy who gets other guys to take a lot of penalties. Following in the footsteps or skates, of players like Kenny Linsmen and Essa Tikkanen, if not Claude Lemieux, Avery became a pest and an agitator.

He was called the “super pest” and the king of the agitators.

He showed the Rangers he also had other skills.

He was a very good fighter—going undefeated in 53 bouts—and an excellent chirper, but he was also an excellent skater with soft hands; he was a tenacious checker and an enforcer who would not hesitate to come to the rescue of a teammate.

He became a fan favourite as well as a hockey player loved by the media in New York City.

He showed he was the kind of hockey player who went into the corners and got the puck out. He got himself in front of the net to screen the goalie or take a pass and score a goal. He scored 18 goals in one year.

He back checked, fore checked, annoyed the goalies and kept chirping and fighting. At the same time, he got his name in page six of the New York Post even more times than he scored goals in games.

The Rangers signed him once and then they signed him up again. The NHL invented a new rule for unsportsmanlike conduct and named it after him.

The Avery Rule was celebrated with a tee-shirt that said "Avery Rules!"

The Dallas Stars signed him to a multiyear, multimillion dollar deal.

Not bad for an undrafted hockey player!

He became more famous than hockey heroes like Sidney Crosby, as he crossed over from hockey into the worlds of fashion and Hollywood. He dated actresses and models and got his name in People magazine and The New Yorker.

Before he went to Texas, he was a celebrity intern at Vogue, for the summer and a guest editor for Men's Vogue, with a workout video on-line and a column published that inspired a movie like a sequel to The Devil Wears Prada.

For some reason, after all that, he did not fit in when he got to Texas. The Dallas Stars got off to a sluggish start and so did he.

He was a star in New York and a star in Los Angeles, but the Dallas Stars did not like what they saw of Avery.

When the NHL slapped Avery with his first suspension—six games for trash talking to the media—the Stars said they did not want him back.

It was not the first time Avery got in trouble with the NHL for things he said. They had warned him, before. They sent him to anger management.

Avery missed about three months of hockey.

Some say he shot a Gap ad and worked on the movie based on his Men's Vogue report. He graduated from anger management and found himself back in the AHL.

The Dallas Stars do not have an affiliate team in the AHL, yet, and the New York Rangers were interested in getting him back so, the Stars loaned Avery to the Rangers affiliate team in Hartford.

He had to be put on waivers and clear waivers and he had to get himself in game shape in the AHL, so he could return to the NHL. His goal was to get in shape without getting injured.

Avery got a lot of attention from the media, fans and the whole hockey world for being in anger management.

He showed them all he could be diplomatic, during interviews and he could chirp or trash talk, on the ice, without being labeled sexist or racist or getting arrested for verbal abuse.

As a high profile NHLer playing in the AHL, again, Avery expected to run into guys who were like him when he first signed with the Red Wings and played for the Cincinnati Mighty Ducks—guys who wanted to make names for themselves by getting a piece of him.

On his first shift in his first game in the AHL with the Wolf Pack, he got into a skirmish. By the second game, he was up to his old tricks—chirping, agitating and stirring things up.

After losing two games with Avery, the Wolf Pack went on a four game win streak. He got an assist on a game winning goal in overtime in his fourth AHL game and he got his first penalty.

In his last game, he got a goal and was named the game's second star.

Meanwhile, in the NHL, the Dallas Stars went on a winning streak, too, but the Rangers went in the opposite direction.

The Rangers started the season going 10-2 but had a mid-season slump, going 2-10.

Rangers General Manager, Glen Sather, fired coach, Tom Renney and replaced him with John Tortorella.

Torts, as he's known, said some harsh things about Aver on TSN, but Sather assured him he would learn to love him after he saw what No. 16 could do for his team.

Rangers’ fans called him the spine of the team. Others said he played his heart out, or at least his spleen, for the Rangers.

As the NHL trade deadline draws closer, the Rangers slipped in the standings, day-by-day, so that making the play-offs looked more and more like a long-shot.

Rangers’ fans called for Renney's head, and got it and some are still calling for Sather to resign. They still blame him for losing last year's stars: Jagr, Shanahan, Straka and Avery.

Jagr's now the star of the KHL. Shanahan's a Devil, playing for the Rangers rivals across the river, in New Jersey. Straka went back to the Czech Republic.

Avery's down the road, playing himself into game shape, inspiring the Wolf Pack towin in the AHL instead of the Rangers in the NHL and the AHL loves it.

Attendace in Hartford games has gone way up and the same thing happens wherever Avery and the Wolf Pack play.

AHL fans are seeing a new Sean Avery, quite unlike the Avery they saw the first time he played in the league and racked up 304 PIMs.

They are seeing a Sean Avery seasoned by several years in the NHL, not to mention anger management.