Tim Stützle's dive, Brendan Gallagher's accusations: Sens send a clear message

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Jeff Drouin
April 23, 2022 (5:41 PM)

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As the Montreal Canadiens face off against the Ottawa Sens tonight, one of the issues that will be closely watched is certainly the Brady Tkachuk / Tim Stützle / Brendan Gallagher confrontation.

Let's remember that, following the last duel between the two teams, Brendan Gallagher spoke out and directly accused Tim Stützle of diving too easily to draw penalties. (and of faking injuries)

The Sens remembered this and Stützle has been getting a lot of flack for it ever since, something that head coach D.J. Smith laments.

And according to reporter Bruce Garrioch (Ottawa Sun), expect the Sens to be on Brendan Gallagher's back all night to send him a clear message.

Speaking of clear messages, check out what Ottawa's coach had to say:

"There were some unfair comments made about him (Stützle) diving or getting penalties, so now guys are chasing him and the penalties weren't called, it's unfortunate. He's a young man with a lot of pride and he's had to miss games because of these injuries. He didn't practice (Thursday) and I saw him limping around trying to get his lunch." - D.J. Smith

This looks promising for tonight!

To review the gist of Gallagher's comments :

Brendan Gallagher had a lot on his mind against Tim Stützle. "When I was 10 years old, we had a rule. If you went down on the ice, you had to skip two or three appearances. Stützle always comes back quickly." - J-F Chaumont

Gallagher also added this:

"He's a great player, but more than half the games we've played against him, he drops to the ice, acts like he's in pain and then you see him on the power play, ready to play. There are young guys watching us and they see that. They're taking their cues from us, it's not brilliant to do that. If I was his teammate, I would tell him to try to be smarter than that. It's embarrassing what he's doing here... He's a good player, but he needs to stop faking injuries all the time and acting out." - Brendan Gallagher

Following that, Brady Tkachuk had responded and he may respond again, tonight on the ice in Ottawa.