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Roussel gives Wings' bench the business after being taunted earlier in the game.

Roussel gives Wings' bench the business after being taunted earlier in the game.

Roussel gets his revenge.

HockeyFeed

HockeyFeed

Sometimes taunts can get under the skin of your adversaries but sometimes they can also serve to motivate them.

On Sunday the Detroit Red Wings learned that lesson the hard way when two of their younger players decided to taunt a veteran player in an attempt to get under his skin, producing the latter result instead. It was Detroit Red Wings' youngsters Andreas Athanasiou and Tyler Bertuzzi who did trhe taunting this time around and it was directed at a rather tough veteran, Vancouver Canucks agitator Antoine Roussel.

Now to be fair to the 2 young guns it was perfectly understandable that they would want to mock Roussel as the Canucks forward did produce a relatively poor effort on a break away attempt he had during the contest. Roussel managed to break free for the break away but did not have much control of his body, his stick, or the puck and only managed a very weak shot on net that was easily handled. It was after that save that Bertuzzi and Athanasiou came over and began to point and laugh at him, something Roussel would clearly remember just a few short moments later.

On his very next shift Roussel once again was given an opportunity to find the back of the net, 2 in fact, in the form of shorts from the Vancouver defense posted up near the Red Wings blue line. Never one to shy away from the traffic in front of the net Roussel was in position for a deflection that unfortunately for the Canucks did not find the target, but just a few seconds later he would be granted a do over in the form of another point shot. 

This time Roussel made good on his deflection and after tipping the puck he found the back of the Red Wings net and celebrated with his usual "boom" celly. I might be reading too much into this but it certainly looked like to me that Roussel added a little extra mustard on the "boom" in his celly this time around, and even if he didn't he had plenty for the Red Wings after the fact anyways.

As his teammates huddle around him Roussel could be seen visibly jaw jacking the Red Wings bench, no doubt direct his taunts at Bertuzzi and Athanasiou.

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