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Lightning rip Anisimov’s “point gun at Lecavalier” celebration

anisimov gun

Artem Anisimov’s controversial goal celebration from last night’s 3-2 shootout loss to Tampa Bay has come under fire.

(Yes, that was a horrible pun.)

If you haven’t seen the incident yet, here’s the video:

Following the game, Tampa Bay was particularly harsh in its critiques.

Steve Stamkos: “It’s just classless. I think I’ve seen him do that once or twice before, so no surprise there. We got the win. He’ll know it’s in the back of our minds the next time we see him. But we’re not going to break focus because of that. We wanted to win the game and we did.

“I don’t know if you saw the replay, but he turned back and pointed the stick like a gun and shot it at Vinny. We don’t need that in our sport. For the most part, you don’t see that too much. But it happens once in a while and it’s dealt with.”

Vincent Lecavalier: “He points his stick like he fires at our net, I’m sure his teammates and their coach was not impressed with that. We were offended and it’s disrespectful. It’s not like he was happy to score a goal and did some type of (fist) pump; it was directly at our net and our goalie.’'

Guy Boucher: “That was a gesture that I think proved the players were in it together. Vinny, the captain showing the way, in the fact that we are not going to take humiliation and he certainly set the tone for the rest of the game.’'

The Rangers were also critical of Anisimov, though their critiques were much softer. The general consensus was “Artie knew what he did was wrong” and “Artie didn’t mean anything by it,” though head coach John Tortorella took a more fatherly approach.

“I guess I’m in a protective mode,” Tortorella said. “I think he deserves to be protected because I know who he is. I don’t blame Tampa at all as far as how they reacted. But I want to protect him. He’s a solid, solid guy that made a mistake that I still don’t think he really understands what he was doing there.”

Don’t expect this incident to go away anytime soon. It’s likely to land on the desk of NHL discipline czar Brendan Shanahan because Lightning forward Steve Downie left the bench to partake in the post-goal fracas.