Tampa Bay’s Dan Ellis has a bit of a history when it comes to provocative public remarks, and continued the trend this week, blasting Edmonton LW Linus Omark for the creativity displayed above, during Friday’s shootout victory. The New York Post’s Larry Brooks considers Ellis’ subsequent lecture.
“It’s embarrassing for him,” said Ellis, who apparently never tires of embarrassing himself. “You come into a league, a respectful league like this, and you try a little move like that. It’s not a very classy thing. That’s just the kind of person he is.”
Actually, Omark didn’t simply, “try a little move like that,” he succeeded with it. “Trying a little move,” is what Olli Jokinen did in Philadelphia last April when he did circles in the defensive zone before picking up the puck in the littlest shootout attempt of 2009-10.
And exactly what “kind of person” does Ellis think Omark is? A Swede? A rookie? How does Ellis have the slightest clue what kind of person Omark is, other than the kind of person who outwits and then beats him with the game on the line?
Ellis wasn’t alone among the crybaby Lightning in condemning the move, which only goes to prove that Tampa Bay lacks more than quality goaltending, it lacks a measure of class despite the presence of Steve Yzerman in the executive suite and Marty St. Louis in the room