Last season a major American Newspaper from Pittsburgh wrote a newspaper article that tried to remake
Matt Cooke's tattered image after the Penguins bad boy was suspended by the
National Hockey League's Department of Player Safety for the rest of the
Stanley Cup Playoffs. I guess we could say this
article some similar to that one. This article by the Vancouver Providence wants us to look at one of the players in a different light.
Enter
Alex Burrows, while me might be a "great" hockey player statically; his unsportsmanlike on ice antics makes him one of the most unlikable players/characters in the NHL. Burrows also happens to be a team member on one of the most unlikable teams in the NHL, the Canucks are the poster boys of poor sportsmanship. As we have seen in the Stanley Cup Playoffs that last few years, the
Vancouver Canucks are a team full of driving frauds and cry babies that are as light on their skates as any team in the NHL. Everytime someone touches one of the Canucks they throw their heads back like they have been shot.
The Providence --- Burrows has done himself no favours in the past. He is not known as a hockey player but as a finger-biting, hair-pulling, head-snapping diver who gets to play the role of fire-hydrant, standing in front of the net while the Sedins bank shots in off him.
It’s a shame because Burrows is a hell of a hockey player.
Consider that he’s averaged 30 goals a season over the past four campaigns.
But then add to the consideration the fact he gets next to no power-play time.
When it comes to even-strength goals, he had 23 this season – more than Rick Nash, more than Matt Moulson.
Burrows is the poster boy for everything that is wrong with the Vancouver Canucks, first he comes off as clownish character and an unlikable buffoon that I can only imagine that an opposing player would rather pound into the boards or cross check in the mouth, rather than to have to watch their on ice antics. This past post season the head coach of the Vancouver Canucks Alain Vigneaul had to tell Canucks forwards Alex Burrows and Max LaPierre
to shut their mouths.
Burrows biting of Patrice Bergeron during the 2011 Stanley Cup Finals was an atrocious and unpunished childish act that should have resulted in Burrows being give a suspension.
If I was a general manager in the NHL I would take a pass on this clown, I don't care how many goals that he scores - while Burrows has a serious upside offensively - he is also a poor sport and a distraction to the rest of the Vancouver Canucks and there are a lot of other unlikable characters on that team. If I was the GM of the Vancouver Canucks I would try to package a deal that includes Alex burrows and Max Lapierre to any Eastern Conference team that would take these two clowns. Losing those two players would help save the image of that once great franchise.
