What Would Avery Do If Staged Fights Were Banned?

"What would Sean Avery do?" the t-shirts say.

The No. 1 issue at the NHL GM’s meting in Florida this week, was fighting, especially staged fights and it makes me wonder: What would Sean Avery do?

Images of Avery chirping at Darcy Tucker, the Toronto Maple Leafs or others, before the start of an NHL game remain on Youtube.com and in the brain. The role of the agitator is to incite the other team to get them off their game plane.

Avery was willing to back up his words with his fists. Some of his 53 NHL fights would be classified as "staged" by the NHL brass.

Those fights will be a thing of the past under more new NHL rules.
 
What will Avery and the other agitators in the NHL do?

They will probably wait until a few minutes after the opening face-off and then get into a fight that looks spontaneous.

Usually, the agitators play on the third line and don't get on the ice at the start of the game.

It looks like Avery got promoted tot he first line, so maybe his role on the Rangers team is changing from agitator to scorer. He got his first goal since rejoining the Rangers last night to beat the Nashville Predators 402, playing on the first line.

The question is, what will Colton Orr of the New York Rangers do?

The new NHL is evolving and the direction is clear.

The big goons are gone, the King of the Agitators got sent to Anger Management, there are more and more highly talented playmaker sand skilled players in the league, and the hockey heroes get more ice to make more fancy plays and score more highlight reel goals.

Super pest or hockey villain Sean Avery may get a lot of attention right now, but the future belongs to hockey heroes like Sidney Crosby, Evgeny Malkin and Alex Ovechkin.

What would Avery do?

Last night he had just one hit and no penalties but scored a goal and was involved in two other Rangers goals in Nashville.