When the Rangers' Aaron Voros finished a check against Donald Brashear alongside the Capitals' bench in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs last spring, he ended his shift and took a couple of strides to the Rangers' bench.
In frustration after having been hit, Brashear rebounded from the boards by trying to make a run at Voros. But with Voros having changed, Brashear focused his attention to the defenseless Blair Betts, who was busy watching his dump-in ride the boards around the Washington net.
Brashear circled back from his pursuit of Voros, took two strides and unleashed a devastating left elbow to the face of Betts that left Betts with a broken orbital socket and Brashear with a six-game suspension for what was deemed to be a late hit, the textbook example of late hit at that.
Paul Mara hunted down Brashear in front of the Washington bench before the officials broke it up, as Betts was helped off the ice at Madison Square Garden and down the tunnel to the Rangers' locker room. The same locker room he is being asked to share this season with Brashear.
Glen Sather has made some controversial decisions as a front office figure during his career in the NHL, but very few have as little sense as signing Brashear in the offseason to join a team he has spent the last decade become a villian of as a member of the Capitals and Flyers.
And while Sather might not care about Brashear's past, his presence with the Blueshirts isn't going unnoticed by Rangers fans.
Brashear was booed at a meet-and-greet with Rangers fans, and he was showered with boos on Broadway. And all of this has John Tortorella fired up at the fans, and also at the media for creating this sideshow.
"I don't know what's going on there," Tortorella told the New York Daily News. "Donald Brashear's gonna be a big part of the hockey club. I just don't think he needs to be disrespected. I think you (media) guys disrespected him when we brought him in here, I think that started the ball rolling."
Tortorella was put in a difficult place by Sather for going through with the deal, though it is hard to imagine that Tortorella didn't have some input. And while it might be a thing of the past in the locker room, it certainly hasn't translated over into the stands.
Winning cures everything, and winning fights can do the same. New York can be a forgiving city, but first they must be able to forget. And a KO for Brashear wearing a blueshirt could fix that rather quickly.
