Comparing Rangers D Sean Avery targeting the wrists of Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby with Adam Graves’ attempts to disable Mario Lemieux, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review conceeds few others will raise the point because “sneak attacks are designed that way.”

The first slash connected. Luckily for Crosby, the harder second one did not, only because he’d whipped his smarting wrist out of the way. “He wasn’t going for the puck,” Crosby said. “He was going for my wrist.”

Penguins coach Michel Therrien said he was well aware of the incident and added, somewhat cryptically, “I’m working on that right now.”

Asked if that meant he was going to send a tape to league headquarters, Therrien said no.

It’s not exactly news that Avery is a league-wide joke. Or, as Penguins winger Gary Roberts put it a few weeks ago, “an idiot.”

Roberts was speaking in the aftermath of Avery’s ridiculous face-guarding act against New Jersey goaltender Martin Brodeur.

You might have heard what Avery did at the Rangers’ next practice, when he realized a television camera had caught him re-enacting his face-guarding routine. He made an obscene gesture to the camera.

This is the kind of maladjusted mental midget you’re dealing with.

Who knows why this obnoxious little gnat is such an attention seeker? Maybe Penguins defenseman Hal Gill got it right in Game 2, after the benches exchanged words.

NBC analyst Pierre McGuire, stationed between the benches, said, “Hal Gill just said to Avery, ‘You just weren’t hugged enough as a child. That’s why you’ve got issues.’ “

Yes, he’s got issues.  Of Vogue (with apologies to Alan Partridge).