So, for many of Sunday evening’s sport between the Vancouver Canucks and Edmonton Oilers, there have been two parallel narratives — one on the ice, one on social media.
On the ice: How Vancouver was badly successful the goalie battle, rookie Arturs Silovs, taking part in exceptionally nicely (and significantly better than his Oilers counterpart Stuart Skinner). Silovs stopped 41 of 44 photographs. He was absolutely the distinction maker in a 4-3 Vancouver win, which gave the Canucks a 2-1 collection lead within the NHL’s Western Convention semifinal.
On social media: How referee bias was working towards the Oilers, who weren’t getting their justifiable share of the calls, from the refereeing tandem of Chris Rooney and Graham Skilliter.
However in the long run, the dirtiest play of the evening got here as soon as the ultimate whistle had blown; and Silovs had made one closing cease to win the sport in regulation.
Connor McDavid was behind the online, jousting with Carson Soucy. Soucy cross-checked McDavid, and McDavid slashed him again on the pants. It wasn’t a lot — or till Soucy’s defence associate, Nikita Zadorov joined the fray. As Zadorov cross-checked McDavid from behind, inflicting his knees to buckle, Soucy cross-checked him within the throat.
Carson Soucy catches McDavid with a cross-check after the ultimate buzzer 😳 pic.twitter.com/Gf03SqgE0l
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) Might 13, 2024
That hit undoubtedly crossed the road.
Sure, playoff hockey is intense. Sure, groups typically can’t go away nicely sufficient alone as soon as the ultimate whistle blows as a result of these are best-of-seven collection, and as soon as Sport 3 is over, the posturing for Sport 4 begins.
The Canucks will probably be fortunate, nonetheless, in the event that they get to Sport 4, with Soucy within the lineup.
A cross-check to the face, just like the one he delivered, took punishment to a different stage. Ultimately, Soucy did get a minor penalty assessed on the buzzer, which is totally inconsequential if the NHL doesn’t comply with up with supplementary self-discipline.
NHL playoff hockey is after all a unique animal than the common season. Some gamers are simply constructed for it — Zadorov is a working example. Zadorov — acquired from the Calgary Flames in a commerce earlier this season — was added due to his measurement and willingness to play a bodily sport. At occasions, his regular-season play was erratic. However within the playoffs, and particularly on this collection towards the Oilers, he’s been a strong, intimidating power.
At one level in Sunday’s sport, he completed a test on Evander Kane, which knocked Kane into the Edmonton participant bench. Not content material with merely driving Kane proper off the ice floor, Zadorov adopted up with two extra pushes to make sure he stayed there. That earned him a roughing penalty. Nonetheless, it didn’t find yourself costing the Canucks a factor as a result of the Oilers had been themselves dinged for a bench minor, for retaliating from the bench.
The Canucks acquired Zadorov only for these playoff moments — he understands that in playoff hockey, somebody must play the function of the villain for Vancouver, as a result of if nobody does, then the McDavids and Leon Draisaitls will ultimately make you pay.
Zadorov may also be artful about it. Presumably, he understood his blindside postgame cross-check to McDavid was simply borderline sufficient to flee additional NHL justice. So pondering strategically.
Soucy, however, acquired carried away with the final response. You simply can’t cross-check somebody throughout the throat, at any second in time. The NHL’s participant security division has been eerily quiet up to now in these playoffs, whilst officiating controversies rage from sport to sport and collection to collection.
The truth that it was McDavid on the receiving finish of that double-barreled cross-check provides additional gasoline to the hearth. Bear in mind, lower than three years in the past, a well-liked narrative was how McDavid couldn’t get a break from the NHL referees — that statistically, he drew only a few penalties, contemplating his talent stage, his ice time and his manufacturing.
The controversy got here to a head in November of 2021, at a time when McDavid was second within the league in scoring however solely 57th when it got here to drawing penalties. And this after he’d gone a complete playoff the yr earlier than with out drawing a penalty name — unimaginable actually, contemplating the way in which he performs.
When McDavid commented on that lastly, he was known as out by none aside from John Tortorella, who was then between teaching jobs, working as a broadcaster for ESPN. Tortorella suggested him to “actually, simply shut up. Cease speaking about it.”
It virtually appeared as if McDavid, as a result of he had an overdrive that mere mortals couldn’t match, took extra punishment than warranted as a result of he was so good.
In time, the second handed, and the controversy light.
There’s generally a notion that the NHL goes out of its method not to guard elite gamers, as a result of it would present favoritism. This after all is nonsense. Gamers solely ever need one factor from the referees — consistency, as a lot as potential, from shift to shift and interval to interval and sport to sport.
In different phrases, the identical therapy for journeyman gamers as for the celebrities of the sport. However consistency has to chop each methods too. You may’t ignore what occurred right here, simply because this was McDavid, getting manhandled. What Soucy did was reckless and harmful. A suspension virtually actually needs to be coming. If not, what’s already a rowdy Oilers-Canucks collection has an actual likelihood of descending into actual mayhem.
(Photograph: Paul Swanson / NHLI by way of Getty Photographs)
