Connor McDavid versus Alex Ovechkin is supposed to be a marquee game of the entire season.
The superstar Russian, coming into Wayne Gretzky territory to track down the Great One’s all-time goal-scoring record, against the closest thing there will ever be to a modern-day Gretzky, is pure television gold.
And it’s not happening.
How much did SportsNet pay for the rights to the NHL? And they don’t get this matchup? Tough break.
It’s too bad this game wasn’t on Amazon Prime or ESPN’s main network and the NHL had to explain to a major US media partner why McDavid vs Ovechkin is going to air with Edmonton’s captain sitting in the press box.
The answer, as we all know, is 100 years old.
Because this is a league where two veteran referees decided it was OK to pin a superstar player on the ice for 15 seconds in the waning moments of a one-goal game so he couldn’t touch the puck and it didn’t even really seem that all that shocking.
And the ensuing cluster puck at the end of Saturday’s game in Vancouver led to a chain reaction that turned what should have been a special evening against the Washington Capitals into two violent incidents, two disciplinary hearings and another example of the NHL’s inability to figure itself out.
McDavid isn’t crying about it. Never has. Never will. And he does give it out pretty well on occasion, too. But it shouldn’t have to be this way.
It’s not just McDavid. That the NHL thinks it’s OK to let all of its star players be pestered and obstructed every shift because they’re so much better than everyone else is simply a bad way to run a league.
“It’s unfortunate,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch, adding McDavid has to deal with more hacking and whacking and holding than anyone in the league.
“He puts up with way more. I don’t want to speak for other teams’ star players and what they put up with, but he’s under the microscope every time he’s on the ice because he’s dangerous.
“Don’t give him room, give him another shot, hold him a little bit, tug on his jersey, get in his way. All those little things that could be called penalties…”
Aren’t being called. It’s known as the Jordan Rules, made famous by the NBA’s Detroit Pistons back in the day. There is no way they could stop Michael Jordan legally, so they fouled him hard every possession, knowing full well the referees couldn’t call everything. Wear him down, beat him up, get him frustrated.
That’s where hockey’s been for a long time now. From Wayne Gretzky to Sidney Crosby to McDavid. For every penalty that McDavid draws there are half a dozen or more that the referees choose to let go. Remember the playoff series with Winnipeg where the fastest player in the NHL didn’t draw a single penalty?
“If you called every single one, are you changing the game?” said Knoblauch. “It’s a fine line, but I definitely believe he puts up with more than the average player.”
This suspension is also on McDavid. There were better ways to get his point across than crosschecking Garland on the side of the head. So he has to pay the piper for a split-second loss of cool.
But the whole situation illustrates the NHL’s backward approach to marketing its game.
You think the NFL would allow this to happen? ‘Sorry, you can’t have Josh Allen vs Lamar Jackson this weekend because the referees ignored a whole bunch of cheap shots in the last game, Allen lost his cool and now we suspended him.’
No chance.
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins has been watching this from the first day of McDavid’s career and says people outside the game don’t fully understand the scope of what he has to play through.
“We do see it a little bit different because it’s not just the big plays, it’s the little things, constantly, that he’s had to deal with since he’s come in,” he said.
“Because of his level, he’s had a target on him since day one and the way he’s handled that is extremely impressive.”
The question at this point shifts to the Oilers. What are they going to do about it? Whether it’s their goalie being steamrolled, Evan Bouchard getting crosschecked in the mouth or McDavid being slew-footed in Los Angeles and pinned on the ice in Vancouver, teams around the league are sensing that it’s OK to abuse Edmonton’s top players.
It used to be an easy fix. Punch the offender in the mouth a few times. Sadly, though, the NHL has become a league that favours the weasel over the standup player.
Slash a guy in the back of the leg, sit on their captain, and the Department of Player Safety has your back. Pummel the guy who did the slashing and the sitting and the NHL is coming for you.
“It’s a little bit different now,” said Knoblauch. “You can’t just grab a guy and beat him to a pulp, otherwise you’re suspended.
“If a guy wants to be an agitator, crosscheck, slash, in the past you could just grab him and do something about it. Now, if there’s that pest who wants to do that and you want to fight him, he doesn’t have to fight. He doesn’t have to do anything.
“It makes it a difficult situation. That’s where you rely on the referees to call the game appropriately.”
E-mail: [email protected]
Bookmark our website and support our journalism:Don’t miss the news you need to know — add EdmontonJournal.com and EdmontonSun.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.
You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber. Subscribers gain unlimited access to The Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Edmonton Journal | The Edmonton Sun.