No Disrespect

Apparently some people think the above goal was "disrespectful."

• "A ... joke," left wing Ryan Malone said.

• Asked if it was disrespectful, defenseman Mattias Ohlund said, "Absolutely."

• "It's embarrassing for him," Ellis said. "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."

• Completely unprompted, left wing Simon Gagne said the move showed disrespect for an opponent. "I think it was a little bit overboard," Gagne said. "It's okay, you make a nice move if you want to, you're allowed to do it, but you don't need to do those little things before. It's a line that you're not allowed to cross, and he did it on this one." Coach Guy Boucher, who declined to comment on Omark's spin-o-rama move at the blue line as he skated toward goalie Dan Ellis, said Saturday, "I didn't lose any sleep over it. He's not my player. But the players were (mad) on the bench even before the goal. You could see them, 'What the (bleep).' " Asked if Omark, 23, in his first NHL game, showed disrespect toward the Lightning, Gagne said, "A little bit. You don't need to do that spin-o-rama. You come into the league, it's your first game. It's not something a guy who has been in the league 10 years would do. You don't see a guy like Sidney Crosby doing that."

I'm not sure I get it. If the game is settled and a guy is dicking around like that, yeah, it's poor sportsmanship. But the game was on the line here--this was a game winning goal. The only person risking looking like an idiot is the shooter himself if he were to lose that puck. It's impossible to say whether that little spin-o-rama at center ice did anything to throw off the goalie, but it was a game winning play, and the theatrics were before shooting.

The shootout is a contrived skill competition in the first place anyway. If you want to stop his disrepect, stop his freaking shot, then complain. If you do that, you'll have the last laugh anyway by winning and the guy making the move will look like doubly stupid with his ridiculous moves. Chances are, in that case, his own teammates will be the ones pissed at him.