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Avs rip Stewart after Sarich scrap, celebration

Stewart-Sarich

The Colorado Avalanche were in a sour mood following Thursday’s 7-3 blowout loss to St. Louis -- but the hard feelings weren’t just about the scoreline.

The Avs took exception to a second-period tilt between Chris Stewart and Cory Sarich, in which the St. Louis forward scored a comprehensive victory:

The post-fight celebration irked a number of Colorado players, as did Stewart’s choice in dance partners. Colorado had a pair of tough guys in the lineup on Thursday -- Cody McLeod and Patrick Bordeleau, who’ve combined for seven of the team’s 13 fights this season -- though Sarich is no stranger to the scrap game, having already dropped the gloves twice this season.

Regardless, the Avs were choked.

“There is no brains,” defenseman Jan Hejaa said about Stewart, as per the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “It’s just a guy who fights his whole life.”

“It’s a little gutless by him,” added goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere. “But it’s an emotional game and these things will happen.”

(Making this all the more interesting is that Stewart was drafted by Colorado, spent his first two-and-a-half seasons with the Avs and was teammates with a number of current players.)

The testy contest featured two other fights -- Matt Duchene going with Vladimir Sobotka, Ryan Reaves dropping ‘em with McLeod -- and the two teams combined for 80 penalty minutes.

UPDATE: For a little more context on the scrap and aftermath, here’s Adrian Dater of the Denver Post...

The game got very rough in the second, starting with a big Patrick Bordeleau hit on Blues defender Ian Cole in a 4-1 game. A few seconds later, Stewart dropped the gloves with 35-year-old Avs defenseman Cory Sarich. Stewart won the fight, and then raised his arms to the crowd like a WWE wrestler.

Later, Bordeleau was given a 10-minute misconduct penalty simply for lining up next to Stewart for what would have been a probable fight.