Nick Cousins is playing the 'rat' role to perfection

Florida Panthers center Nick Cousins has developed a reputation over the years of being one of the league’s best rats, but on Tuesday night against the Buffalo Sabres, he took it to a whole other level. After Jordan Greenway gave him a good punch to the face, Cousins dropped to the ice in pain. But after the rest of the players started to get into a scrum again, Cousins popped back up like nothing happened and joined the chaos.

Luke Gazdic joined Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk on Daily Faceoff Live to talk about Cousins growing reputation as a rat, including his own experiences against him.

Luke Gazdic: Honestly, Cousins is an absolute nightmare, I give him credit. You mentioned that word rat, is he ever playing that role to perfection, to a tee. He would drive me nuts, and did drive me nuts! He was with the Philadelphia Flyers when I was in the league, and he always had a couple words for me. Man, they were a nightmare to play against between him, Travis Konecny, Dale Weise never shut up the whole game, they had big Jay Rosehill my first year too, that building was a nightmare.

It was just a tough team to play against just because Cousins would not stop the whole game. He liked to pick on guys like me on the fourth line, just to try to get in my ear and get me to take a penalty. But like I said, it’s hard not to almost respect what he’s doing, because he plays that role to perfection. But yes, he would make me very upset, the blood pressure would be through the roof.

Frank Seravalli: Look, he’s carved out a pretty impressive career for himself. Looking back four or five years, there was a chance that his career was kind of teetering on the edge. He was traded for a fifth-round pick, he was traded for a fourth-round pick, and he’s now become a guy that people are talking about, and he’s still only 30 years old.

So, I don’t know that everyone respects exactly how he does it, but I certainly respect just being able to game up for that every night. It’s not easy to get in that mode and gear every single night for 82 games.

You can watch the full episode here…