Lindy Ruff has seen just about enough of Ryan Garbutt’s antics.
Garbutt, one of Dallas’ two in-house pests (along with Antoine Roussel), was punished by his head coach during Thursday’s loss to Detroit for -- surprise! -- some undisciplined play.
The Stars went on their first power play of the game late in the period, but towards the end of it Dallas forward Ryan Garbutt took a slashing penalty, which put the Red Wings hot power play on the job. Detroit took advantage. Pavel Datsyuk grabbed the puck in the slot and backhanded it past [Jussi] Rynnas at 18:52 of the period.
Ruff was not happy with Garbutt, who didn’t see the ice in the second period.
“It was a tough penalty. I don’t think I played him at all in the second period,” Ruff said. “We talked about the discipline. That discipline hurt us in the game. I told him I don’t want anymore. To that point, I thought we were controlling a good part of the game.”
Not a new theme. Over the last season and a bit, Garbutt has compiled himself a pretty serious rap sheet; he’s been suspended twice -- once for kneeing, once for charging -- for a grand total of seven games, and was fined during last year’s playoffs for spearing Corey Perry in the groin.
Ruff, clearly, is not a fan of Garbutt’s antics.
The head coach made this abundantly clear last month, admonishing Garbutt’s “reckless” knee-on-knee hit against Taylor Hall, which resulted in a two-game banishment.
“It’s something he has a tough time with,” Ruff said of Garbutt’s disciplinary issues, per the Dallas Morning News. “We had a tough time with it last year, but I thought we were making some headway.
“I feel like I’m losing a bit of ground again.”
Ruff’s slow burn over Garbutt’s undisciplined play came to a head last night, when he gave the gritty forward just 5:02 of total ice time (none in the second period, 1:59 in the third). It was enough for veteran Stars beat writer Mike Heika to ask the question -- will Dallas be forced to healthy scratch Garbutt to really get the message through?
We won’t have to wait long to find out. Dallas is back in action on Saturday against Montreal, where it’ll look to snap its current four-game losing streak.