Alain Vigneault Does Not Like Ron McLean

((HT: Youtube/CanucksHD))

Remember the excahnge we ran earlier this week where Vancouver Canucks winger Alex Burrows went off on NHL official Stephane Auger...??? Auger was making up for, what he thought, was a spot where he was shown up by Burrows against Nashville about a month ago...

The end result was that Burrows got fined by the league and Auger came out clean...

Fast forward to pre-game on CBC's "Hockey Night in Canada" Saturday night, and host Ron McLean and the league's Colin Campbell had a discussion about the issue bringing in the issue of Burrows' past of a pest...

When AV caught wind of it, he let McLean have it with both barrels on the "After Hours" program...

Here's the exchange among Vigneault, Glenn Healy, and Scott Oake...
The magic happens about 2:25 in...
((HT: CBC Sports))

Alex Burrows Is Pissed At Stephane Auger

((HT: nhl.canucks.com/TSN))

Some background...

Over a month ago, Nashville beat Vancouver 4-2. Late in the game, the Preds Jerred Smithson takes a run at Burrows, gets a charging major and a misconduct. After the game, the league reviewed the tape and took the game misconduct off the books since (the league thought) Burrows embellished.

Stephane Auger was the ref for that game...

Last night, Burrows said an official came up to him in warm-ups as seen here...
((HT: Rogers Sportsnet West/Canucks HD))


And said: "The ref came over to me and said I made him look bad in Nashville on the Smithson hit. He said he was was going to get me back tonight and he did his job in third, I think."

In that third period, Burrows was assessed two questionable penalties by Auger. The Predators scored the game-winner on that second power play.

Here's Burrows postgame calling out Auger...
Cool stuff...
((HT: Vancouver Canucks))


The Vancouver Sun newspaper ((Brad Ziemer's work on the story is here)) now says that the NHL office and Director of Hockey Operations Colin Campbell are now investigating what went down...

Now, as is the case with all officials and/or players, the official's association ((fancy word for "union")) will have to defend Auger regardless as to what happened and until that moment of finding out the truth...

The HQ thinks players will feel the whistle-based wrath of the zebras-in-arms on the ice and will have to deal with it on the ice until we know what, if anything, Auger actually did. But Burrows has too much in his corner at present...

Circumstantial evidence points to Auger and a big boo-boo...