Few things have the hockey world talking more this week than what transpired on Saturday night between the Edmonton Oilers and Vancouver Canucks, when last game emotions got the best of many.
Connor McDavid and Tyler Myers both landed cross-checks on opposing players that landed them in hot water, both receiving three-game suspensions. And as the dust has settled and the NHL’s Department of Player Safety handed out rulings, players around the league are speaking out.
Perhaps none louder than McDavid’s teammate, Corey Perry, who did his fair share of giving and receiving on-ice abuse at the height of his career.
Perry’s words were harsh, standing up for his captain and highlighting how the boiling point was reached.
“You have to protect yourself,” Perry told Sportsnet’s Mark Spector. “because if you don’t, you’re just going keep getting the shit kicked out of you. They’re just going to keep coming. That is what it comes down to.”
McDavid’s cross-check has once again brought forth the conversation of officiating and how the faces of the NHL are treated in comparison to other major sports. Look at the National Football League, for example, and one of the faces of their league, Patrick Mahomes.
Mahomes, 29, has won three league titles over his eight-year career with MVP’s in each, as well as a plethora of other awards during his time with the Kansas City Chiefs. The level of protection he receives from NFL officials is so hefty, that it upsets fans across the league.
Compare that to the NHL, for example, where the messaging is always the same: you have to just play through it. But that shouldn’t be something the stars have to do, Perry said.
“Why aren’t we protecting the superstars? Why aren’t we?” Perry told Spector. “Every other league does it? They protect their superstars.
“Sure, they’re going to take extra abuse. They’re the superstars. Connor knows that and he doesn’t bitch and complain very often about it. So we’ll do it for him.”
Another one of McDavid’s teammates kept that energy Tuesday, as Leon Draisaitl spoke about how he felt three games was too many.
“Certainly think three games is a little too much for either side, but I guess we don’t overly care about having our best players in the league in the game,” he said.
Someone else who knows having to “play through it” well is Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby, whose career was nearly derailed due to concussions suffered as the result of cheap shots coming his way. It’s the retaliation, he told The Athletic’s Josh Yohe, that always makes the highlight reels.
“It’s like anything,” Crosby said. “Sometimes your emotions get the best of you. It’s a physical sport. The one time you see that, you probably didn’t see there nine hits that Connor took. Those ones are the ones that never make the highlights. When you retaliate, you make the highlights.
“Whether it’s him or anyone else, it’s an emotional game. That’s going to happen sometimes. If there were calmer or cooler circumstances, he probably wouldn’t have done that.
“That’s hockey.”
Members of the media have made their distaste of the league’s officiating known in recent days, too.
880 CHED’s Bob Stauffer was vocal about how little protection McDavid and other stars get, while Daily Faceoff’s Frank Seravalli set his sights on the on-ice officials on Tuesday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE.
I didn’t have any issues with the suspensions being matching lengths. To your point, a cross-check to the face is a cross-check to the face. However, for both players, this was one game too many…There needs to be more accountability for the officials on the ice. There’s a wrestling match in the middle of the slot for 20 seconds prior to the cross-check to the face. No one is absolving Connor McDavid of that, not by any stretch. You cross-check anyone in the jibs, and you’re getting suspended.
However, he shouldn’t have needed to take justice into his own hands because he was being mauled by Conor Garland…Yet, they let them play and we hear nothing. No explanation. Nothing since. No chatter about it. To get to the Department of Player Safety part of it – this suspension to me, this cross-check to the face, is no different than so many others which received just two games…The thought process of that is, “Well, because McDavid has a previous suspension history.” Never mind that it was five-plus years ago. Never mind that it didn’t involve a stick. Therefore we run into a spot where McDavid ratchets a two-game suspension to a three.
There’s not much of the process that I agree with. The most disappointing part, to add another layer to it, is that’s another waste of time and resources to even bother appealing, because the suspension would be served by then.
Zach Laing is Oilersnation’s associate editor, senior columnist, and The Nation Network’s news director. He also makes up one-half of the DFO DFS Report. He can be followed on Twitter, currently known as X, at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@thenationnetwork.com.

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