[Professional Blog] A perfect 10 from the Newfoundland judge...

Sidney Crosby has had dozens of highlight worthy goals in his brief NHL career to this point. And many of them have featured the star dropping to one knee on his shot. Its a trend that has caught on throughout the league with countless other NHLers testing out the technique with highlight worthy success of their own. Thats one pro for the Kid. But a con against the 20-year-old phenom is his propensity to dive. While Sidss theatrics dont come close to rivaling those of Claude Lemieux, Alexei Kovalev or Bill Barber, he has been taken to task by many players around the league. But like famous divers before him, the intent is to put his team at an advantage. The league can stop lambasting Crosby as the leagues most embarrasing diver. Red Wings goalie Chris Osgood now carries that dubious moniker. At the end of Game 2 in Detroit, Osgood blatantly stuck out the butt end of his stick as Dallas Mike Ribero skated past. Ribero, retaliating like any self-respecting player in the third round of the playoffs should, gave Ozzie a little hack on the left side of his chest protector. No matter what they said about the dustup in post game interviews, the replay tells the story. Osgoods reaction, dropping to the ice as if Ribero were a matador delivering the coupe de grace, was not instantaneous. I guess it took a second to register that embellishing the little slash on equipment designed to withstand pucks at 90-odd miles per hour might put Ribero in the press box for Game 3. No suck luck, Oz. The league slapped them both with fines and told them, for lack of a better term, to smarten up. Three years ago I think the roles would have been reversed and Ribero, a noted diver during his time in Montreal, would have hit the ice faster than you could say one game suspension. Nowadays the pesky little forward comes up swinging. While I would have preferred if he had grabbed ahold of Osgood as opposed to swinging for an infield single, he stood up to the challenge. Its enough for me to have a newfound respect for Ribero, and a whole lot less for Osgood.