Bo Byram to get increased ice time with Girard out; thoughts on potential violence tonight

ST. LOUIS – Greetings from “The Lou”, where the Colorado Avalanche hope to take a 3-1 series lead with a win tonight in Game 4 at the Enterprise Center. We all know the news from the last couple of days, so this is going to be one contentious, hard-fought game. I hope that’s as strong as it gets, but we all know what the elephant in the room is for this one.

If the Blues want to do some dirty stuff tonight against Nazem Kadri or anyone else – truly violent, dirty stuff – the players and everyone involved will probably regret it the rest of their careers and lives. I’ve seen it happen first-hand, with the Steve Moore-Todd Bertuzzi incident in 2004. The Vancouver Canucks thought they got satisfying “revenge” on Moore in that game from March of ’04. In reality, Bertuzzi’s career was never the same, he had to pay a ton of money to Moore and he was suspended all of the playoffs, which killed the Stanley Cup chances of a very good team. The Canucks and others were tied up in lawsuits for years. What Bertuzzi did will be in the first paragraph of his obituary whenever that day comes.