Avery Ok As Rangers Break Up

by: Joe McDonald | Publisher and Editor-in-Chief | Tuesday, May 6, 2008



GREENBURGH, NY – If the Rangers advanced to a Game 7 tomorrow night in Pittsburgh, Sean Avery said he would be there.

“I was ready to play tonight,” he said, “if they would have let me.”

Probably not, and the loss in Game 5 made it a moot point. With the Rangers now packing their things for the summer, Avery - fresh out of the hospital with a ruptured spleen – joined his teammates in exit interviews with the coaches and the media.

“We came into this year with high expectations,” Avery reflected. “Unfortunately it didn’t work out that way. We were beaten by a team with tremendous young players who outworked us. It sucks. There’s nothing fun about that. On good teams you use that as motivation. That’s what it has to be, motivation and over the summer, whoever is going to be a Ranger has to use that.”

Now the question is if Avery will be part of the team. An unrestricted free agent, the agitator will be able to sign anywhere come July 1. The left wing tried to come to an extension with the club earlier in the season to no avail, and still hopes he can continue his career on Broadway.

“New York is a place I want to play,” Avery said, who is thought to want $4 million a season. “I love the team, the fans and the organizations, so I want to come back. [But] I am not the guy who signs players. They won’t allow tee shirts, so they won’t allow a player and a GM. Of course I want to resolve it. I would like to.

“I think my side has an idea what my value is and it is always unexpected what can happen when you wait and the door gets open. That’s the interesting idea as well.”

It’s been well documented the Rangers play better when Avery is in the lineup. Since coming to New York back on Feb. 5, 2007 in a trade from the Los Angeles Kings, the 28 year-old immediately turned around the Rangers fortunes with a 50-20-16 record with Avery in the lineup, while going 9-13-3 in the 25 games he missed due to various injuries this season.

And in the playoffs, Avery was able to unnerve Ilya Kovalchuk last season during the first round against the Thrashers and then the Devils’ unflappable Marty Brodeur this year in the Rangers five game first round win. He even forced the NHL to amend the goaltender interference rule when he stood in front of Brodeur waving his hands and stick in the netminder’s eyes.

Although he had a tougher time against the Pittsburgh Penguins, the left wing did mix it up with Marc-Andre Fleury at the end of Game 2 before taking a hit early in Game 3, ultimately causing his spleen rupture, causing the Rangers to play Games 4 and 5 without him.

“Well it sucks I wasn’t there,” he said. “When somebody goes to battle you want to be with the guys you were with all year. But that’s sports and sometimes it’s out of your control.”

Now he has the summer to recover and get his customary tan back, as he looked pretty pale in Greenburgh.

“They don’t have tanning booths, so that sucks. I am on the board of St. Vincent’s not, so we will work on that,” he joked but then said, “I am just trying to get better, so over the next few weeks, I am trying not get hit by a car or a moving object, so I guess I can handle that.”

He will also have to handle an internship with the fashion magazine Vogue, which he says starts Monday.

“I will just be kind of soaking everything up,” he said. Much like he did with the Rangers over the past year and three months.