BY MARK SPECTOR
sportsnet.ca
SAN JOSE — While the Vancouver Canucks players chose, for the most part, to let Ben Eager’s play speak for itself, it was head coach Alain Vigneault who waded in on the big San Jose winger, always a menace when facing the Canucks.
"He’s obviously running around trying to hurt people," Vigneault said Thursday, before boarding the Canucks charter for San Jose. "He runs Danny (Sedin) from the back, a potential NHL MVP, (then Eager) ran our goaltender. Then their coach says that’s the way he wants him to play.
"I just hope that nothing serious is going to happen on the ice, otherwise there are going to be some serious consequences to that."
To be accurate, Sharks head coach Todd McLellan said he liked Eager’s aggressive game, "without the penalties." He reiterated on Thursday that Eager’s reckless, high-energy style was something that many of the other, more laid back Sharks could learn from, though again, without spending time in the box.
"I thought Ben Eager was one of our better players as far as the forecheck, creating scoring opportunities. He had a number of shots on goal (four, plus one goal), he played with an energy and passion that was required of him. As I said last night, he took penalties that we cannot take," McLellan said.
"Is he an asset or a liability? He was both last night. We can limit the liability part, we've got one heck of a player."
Eager was a member of the Chicago Blackhawks team that eliminated these Canucks in each of the past two playoff seasons. When the Blackhawks were dismantled last summer he ended up in San Jose.
It is clear, Eager and the Canucks have become a tad sick of each other, though this time it is Eager’s team that’s losing its cool — led by his six penalties for 20 minutes in Game 2.
"The tripping penalty (on Mason Raymond), I'd like to have that back. It cost the team and kind of put the game out of hand," Eager said Thursday. "But the hit on Sedin, you know it was a penalty. But I think in playoffs, good teams kill those penalties, and I think the guys did a good job killing that penalty off. Going there and putting the team shorthanded again with the tripping call, that's something I can't do. If I could take that back, I would."
Not two minutes after Vancouver’s Kevin Bieksa had won a one-sided fight against Patrick Marleau, going against a hockey code that says accomplished fighters like Bieksa should not take advantage of star players who rarely drop the mitts, Eager employed that time-honoured method of revenge.
He went straight for one of the Canucks stars, labeling Sedin from behind. He was assessed a two-minute boarding call, and predictably, Vigneault thought he deserved a suspension.
"If that’s not trying to hurt someone, I don’t know what is," Vigneault said.
Afterwards, Eager called Bieksa "a phony," hockey larlance for a player who acts tough, but would rather fight the Marleaus and Viktor Stalbergs of the world, Bieksa’s last two opponents.
"When you hear Eager call Kevin Bieksa a phony," began Vigneault, "when last year we had (Darcy) Hordichuk ask him I don’t know how many times to fight and he always turned him down. And then, I think (Rick) Rypien is 40-45 pounds lighter than him, and offered him on I don’t know how many occasions to fight, and Eager turned him down.
"So, we’re going to go in there (Friday), not worry about all that other stuff. We’re going to play whistle to whistle, play real hard, and that’s going to be it."
Mark Spector is the lead columnist for Sportsnet.ca
Follow me on Twitter.com @SportsnetSpec
