Andreas Athanasiou Verbally Bundled The Shit Out Of Jacob Trouba After Trouba Tried To End His Life
Jared Silber. Getty Images.The New York Rangers have been playing some dog shit hockey as of late. They are shockingly bad, losing 5 out of their last 6 games. Part of the reason they've been playing so terribly lately probably has to do with the fact that their captain is only able to log 13 minutes of playing time during the game because he's spending 12 minutes in the penalty box. In the past 2 games Jacob Trouba has taken 5 penalties. Throughout the entire season so far, he has put up 6 total points on 6 assists. It's never great when the numbers in the point column almost match up identically with the PIMs column on the stat sheet. But that's what happens when you have a guy like Jacob Trouba running around like a jackass out there trying to take guys heads off.
I love massive hits just as much as the next guy. But there's a difference between a huge hit and purposely trying to turn someone's brains into scrambled eggs. The line between the two isn't nearly as thin as Rangers fans would like you to believe, and it's pretty damn obvious that Trouba couldn't care less even if it were. The man is just addicted to head shots. He sees an opponent's skull and he can't help himself but want to smash it into a million little pieces. So it's hard to blame Andreas Athanasiou being a little salty for ending up on the wrong side of said addiction.
I gotta be honest--pretty dirty play bringing a guy's salary into the mix here. But sometimes a dirty hit requires a dirty response. If anything, they just offset each other.
But what I'll say is that the words have to cut a little deeper than the actual hit, especially when they're true. Not that goal totals are necessarily a great way to define a defenseman's abilities in the NHL (even though that's pretty much all the Norris Trophy is these days). And not that Jacob Trouba will necessarily be losing sleep over what Andreas Athanasiou has to say about him, considering nobody outside of diehard hockey players have ever heard Athanasiou's name before. But there's still plenty of truth to what he said, and chances are there are plenty of other guys around the league who are thinking the same thing. You can pop up right away after a head shot and move on from it. The words linger a little longer. So I'm gonna go ahead and give Athanasiou the win for this round.