That Was A Vintage Pest Performance By Alex Burrows

The hockey boys were rowdy last night! A few hours after Gustav Nyquist tried to embed his stick in Jared Spurgeon’s facehole, Sabres netminder Robin Lehner and Canucks agitator Alexandre Burrows spent the evening going at each other—with Burrows the clear winner.

This is what Burrows does, and he does it well, and when it works as planned he enrages you to the point of making mistakes. He was in peak form, being directly responsible for a pair of goals in the Canucks’ 4-2 win in Buffalo. The fun started away from the puck barely seven minutes into the game:

You’ll need to wait for the replay to see it, but Burrows and Lehner mixed it up in the crease, then Lehner—who is large and likes to scrap more than any other goalie—went after Burrows, and then Justin Falk flew in to hit Burrows so hard, he caused the score graphic to appear.

“I didn’t think it was that much,” Burrows said. “I know there’s an unwritten rule that you don’t fight a goalie. I was kind of backing up in a defensive position, asking what he was doing. He looked pretty angry; he’s a big man. Then he gave me a good shot, and then I saw a six-foot-five defenceman charging at me, not looking too happy.”

Penalties were called on Lehner, Burrows, and Falk, which is exactly what Burrows wanted. Vancouver scored on the ensuing power play.

In the second period, Burrows scored a goal of his own to break a 2-2 tie, and you’d better believe he had words for Lehner. At around the 12-second mark of this video, he barks something at the goalie—I can’t tell what—and Lehner responds with something that sounds like “I’ll fucking kill you.”

Lehner was furious after the game, and Burrows was pretty pleased with himself. And why not? After a four-point weekend, the 35-year-old seems more likely than ever to be send to a contender before the March 1 trade deadline. Perhaps Burrows will get the chance to make opponents’ lives miserable in the postseason.