It was ridiculous.
From start to finish. And the end result of Saturday night’s mismanagement at Rogers Arena in Vancouver is that Oilers captain Connor McDavid and Canucks defenceman Tyler Myers are going to be suspended.
It could have been worse. The crosschecks they levelled to the head — McDavid on Conor Garland and Myers on Evan Bouchard — could have done serious damage and resulted in serious punishment.
As it is, the Oilers captain is looking at a one- or two-game ban for losing his temper with two seconds left in a 3-2 defeat.
It’s a sour finish to what had been a fantastic journey for the Oilers, who were 6-1 through the first seven games of an eight-game, eight-city tour of North America.
And it could have been avoided.
The loss is what it is. The combination of the Oilers playing their fourth game in six nights and falling behind early again — it was the fifth time in six games they’ve been behind 2-0 or worse — caught up with them. And full marks to the Canucks for taking advantage of the situation and hanging on for a rare win.
But the whole mess at the end of the game is just another example of what happens when a league leaves its best players hanging out to dry.
As bad as this night was for hockey, it looked worse for the two referees who were supposed to be in charge.
It is absolutely insane that with the Oilers pressing hard in Vancouver’s end for the equalizer that Garland could hold McDavid down on the ice, literally wrapping his legs around him and then tackling him again when he tried to escape, for a full 15 seconds and both Wes McCauley and Chris Lee refused to make the call.
If you gave a chimpanzee a whistle and 30-minute rundown of hockey rules, he would have raised an arm. Instead, they let the play run on and it resulted in an ugly incident and the impending suspension of the league’s marquee player.
It was a smart play by Garland, gambling that neither referee would enforce the rules at that point in the game. You wrap up the best guy on the ice and run out the clock. And it worked.
But, if you’re McDavid, and every game you play is spent being hacked and held while referees turn a blind eye because “they can’t call everything” eventually you’re going to blow your top.
And he did. Getting up and laying the carbon fibre across Garland’s head isn’t smart and it’s going to cost him. A game, maybe two, an outside chance it will be three.
There is no disputing the crime or the punishment. You can’t crosscheck people in the mush. End of story.
But the NHL needs to take a look at why incidents like these are happening. Why was Toronto’s Auston Matthews suspended for a similar infraction in 2022?
Because when you’re chopped and roped on almost every shift for the simple reason that you’re faster and better than everyone else, eventually you’re going to reach a boiling point.
“Connor gets frustrated and gets his stick up,” said Oilers head coach Kris Knoblauch. “He’s frustrated because we’re down one goal and the best player in the league is getting held for 15 seconds.
“There is frustration that that’s allowed to happen and his stick got up.”
McDavid has every right to feel frustrated.
If we’re talking about suspensions, McCauley and Lee should also be called on the carpet and asked to explain why 15 seconds worth of UFC takedown is considered legal in their eyes.
Every sport in the world seems to understand that the best players in the world are their bread and butter and shouldn’t be pushed to the brink because the league and its referees aren’t doing their job.
The NHL, a distant fourth among the major leagues, doesn’t seem to be there just yet.
The mindset in hockey, since before Mario Lemieux famously referred to the NHL as a “Garage League” has always been to protect the players who can’t keep up. Instead of penalizing them for breaking the rules, the onus is on the league’s top players to fight through a certain amount of cheating — otherwise there would be too many power plays and they would be scoring way too many goals.
And we don’t want that.
In the end, it wasn’t even a big deal. The McDavid crosscheck didn’t do a lick of damage. Garland is fine.
“It’s hockey, it happens,” shrugged Leon Draisaitl, who’s been known to wield the lumber himself in order to create some room. “It’s intense. That’s the way it goes sometimes. A little bit of fisticuffs but nothing major.”
He’s right. It was nothing major. But it looked bad so the league has to act. The blatant slew foot that L.A.’s Adrian Kempe laid on McDavid (which also wasn’t called) was far more dangerous, but the league let it slide for some reason. Maybe because it’s much more subtle than a cross check. Maybe because you can’t call everything.
And here we are. Hockey’s culture of protecting players who can’t keep up with the stars instead of protecting the stars resulted in another fuse being blown.
Nice work, NHL. The best player in the world snapped. And now he’s getting suspended. You happy now?
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