It’s the return of Official Review, a series of hypothetical questions designed to bust the collective brain of Dallas Stars fans. This one is tricky.
You know you’re gonna get your head bashed in, right? It doesn’t really matter who you choose or why. But at the same time, this is hilarious and fun. With which Dallas Stars agitator, famous for dropping the gloves, would you fight?
Picture yourself on the ice. You just cross-checked a superstar Dallas player, and one guy on the team is not happy. You are almost certainly going to be destroyed, but with which option would you stand the best chance? You have to fight one of them, you can’t opt out, but you get to choose who.
Four absolutely irate Dallas Stars skaters are coming at you full speed, looking to show you why you can’t hit the Mike Modano and Tyler Seguin types. Their names are Antoine Roussel, Steve Ott, Krys Barch, and Aaron Downey.
The best case scenario is to come out of there alive, and with the least possible damage to your body. It’s up to you to decide which player you have a better chance of achieving some sort of internal victory against.
Participate in our interactive poll on the @BlackoutDallas Twitter account to choose your fate. For an Official Review profile on each fighter, keep scrolling down.
Which Stars agitator would you fight if you had to choose one?
— Blackout Dallas (@BlackoutDallas) January 14, 2018
Antoine Roussel
Recency bias might play a part in the decision process here, but new Dallas Stars fans have them a gritty, scrappy hero in Antoine Roussel. Roussel has four times finished in the top-10 in league-wide penalty minutes, and currently ranks fourth in the 31-team NHL today.
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Never one to back down from a fight is the Frenchman, Rouser’s physical attributes combined with a total “screw you” attitude make him as effective an agitator as the National Hockey League has today. He’s quietly skilled, being the highest-scoring French player of all-time, but I wouldn’t get on his bad side.
Roussel isn’t hulking by any means, at 5’11” and 195 lbs, but his upper-body strength makes him an unbearable fighter. Antoine has fought 55 times at the NHL level, including preseason and postseason games, against some heavy hitters like Daniel Carcillo and Shea Weber.
Steve Ott
Steve Ott was a pile of garbage, but for a long time, he was our pile of garbage. It’s not as though all he did was fight, as Ott totaled 30 or more points four times with the Stars, but his deployment was centered predominantly around his fists.
Ott is now an assistant coach with the St. Louis Blues, after retiring last season. Though he would still undoubtedly kill us all, imagine Ott in his prime for this visualization. To fight Ott was to irritate Ott, and nobody wanted to irritate Ott.
Dallas Stars
At 6’0″ and 195 lbs, Ott’s physicality doesn’t jump off the charts, but basically anyone will tell you that Otter looked bigger in real life. Ott compiled 119 five-minute fighting majors in his NHL career.
Krys Barch
Krys Barch, in his entire six-season tenure with the Dallas Stars, scored 26 points on 10 goals and 16 assists. In that span… I’m gonna step back and let you absorb it… Barch netted 578 penalty minutes. He was that kind of player, and he executed that role to perfection.
When your career high in points is nine, you basically have to become a fighting-exclusive player. Barch accepted that gameplay part and did it with ease, fighting into his knuckles were white and bloody.
119 fights in his career did Barch accrue, as the 6’2″, 210 lb mammoth looked to fill in a roster spot somehow. I wouldn’t want to fight Krys Barch, and you shouldn’t either.
Aaron Downey
Wanna listen to Ralph Strangis and Daryl Reaugh lose their minds because Aaron Downey broke a guy’s jaw? Yes, you do want to listen to Ralph Strangis and Daryl Reaugh lose their minds because Aaron Downey broke a guy’s jaw.
You make the call. You have to fight one of these Dallas Stars agitators, and you can’t back down, only answer the bell. Between Roussel, Ott, Barch, and Downey, you are not going to win – but which one are you going to come out the best against? It’s up to you.
Next: Alexander Radulov Deserves More Recognition
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