Corey Perry has left an indelible mark on the Vancouver Canucks. His antics against the Canucks in Edmonton’s 6-2 win over Vancouver on Thursday have become an exclamation mark on a nightmare season for that team and that fanbase.
Simply put, Perry punked the Canuck. It was perhaps a small and unwelcome act of domination, except that folks in Vancouver see it as a symptom of a much more troubling the disease, the Canucks falling apart in the 2024-25 season.
There were numerous causes and levels of upset in Vancouver after Thursday’s game.
Some were upset about Perry.
Said writer Daniel Wagner of the Pass it to Bulis blog: “Corey Perry is a coward.” He later added: “Perry isn’t required to fight anyone, of course. I’ve certainly never been an advocate of that. What’s cowardly is talking a big game about players policing themselves, then goading a player into a fight you never intended to accept. Refusing to fight Blueger, of all players, a guy who gives up three inches and 20 lbs on Perry, is particularly ridiculous. It’s nothing new for Perry but if he’s going to play like that, he doesn’t get to talk in the press about ‘protecting stars.’”
And Wyatt Arndt of the Stanchion said: “Corey Perry is the kind of guy who has a Twitter handle like Corey12381892743723 and wears fake tattoo sleeves. He is also the kind of guy who can goad your team into penalties, like he did on Teddy KGB after the Oilers were about to serve out a penalty of their own. On the one hand, that feels like a fair trade from Teddy. Getting one solid punch off to the face of Corey seems like a pretty reasonable trade to take your team off the powerplay.”
And Iain MacIntyre of Sportsnet: “Just so I understand this, Corey Perry, denouncer of NHL officiating, advocate for the stars, throws Quinn Hughes on his head without accountability. And is praised for his savvy by those wailing about the treatment of McDavid, and is a hero in Edmonton? Fair enough.”
And commentator Mike Halford of Sportsnet wrote on X-twitter: “perry is a complete embarrassment… Perry talked all this back in the day, old school, tough guy rhetoric. ‘us players gotta police it ourselves.’ ‘always been that way.’ then he plays peek-a-boo when challenged by teddy blueger — teddy effing blueger — to a scrap. lame.”
There was also some grudging admiration of Perry, I should add, Said Canucks announcer Randip Janda on Canucks Central: “Corey Perry is not going to fight. Like he does in his career, but in this situation when he’s being chased after, he’s not going to fight somebody. He’s not the hunter in this regard. So he’s just going to play cool. He’s going to goad you into penalties. He’s going to smile. He’s going to chirp.”
More were upset about the lack of pushback from the Canucks both against Perry and the Oilers.
Said radio commentator Satier Shah on Canucks Central: “(Hughes) clearly smacks his head, head first into the ice, and you’re like, ‘Okay, you can’t let them go after your captain. There has to be some sort of response.’ Not that you have to go out there and try to fight him or do anything cheap, but emotionally, hit him when you have a chance. Try to get back into the game, try to make them pay on the scoreboard. Don’t, you know, lay down and let this one be over. At least show a little bit of fight that your captain was just hit on the head, hit on the ice with his head going down first… I didn’t see a team that was fighting until the end. And I think that was disappointing.”
And, again, Wagner of Pass it to Bulis: “Absolutely atrocious effort from the Canucks against the Oilers, especially after they were called out by Tocchet, who called the loss to the Sabres ‘one of the most disappointing since I’ve been here for two years.’ This team needs a major wake-up call.
Added Halford: “Your captain gets hogtied to the ground in a game where you’re getting your lunch fed to you anyway. It’s not a close game. You’re already being embarrassed in many facets of the game. And then you have to wait until the third period, 1:53 in, when Teddy Blugeer, Teddy Blueger of all people, takes it upon himself to try and exact some revenge with Corey Perry…. It is unbelievable how, out of sync, out of touch, unharmonious, inharmonious, deharmonious, I don’t know the word. It’s crazy that this team, that had everything go right last year, now has everything going wrong.
“If you’re Hughes, and you’re looking around, you’re saying,’Where are the other guys on this team? Who’s got my back here? Anybody? Who’s gonna do something here?’ Cause it’s not a one time occurrence anymore.”
And Sportsnet’s Jason Brough “ If I’m Hughes, I’m furious at this situation. Furious at my teammates…. This is what they’re giving him.?They’re giving him feuds and rifts. They’re not even sticking up for him. They don’t even act like they want to be Vancouver Canucks. You know what I want to watch on a regular basis? Guys that want to be Vancouver Canucks.”
And Matt Sekeres from the Sekeres & Price show: “They’re not sticking up for their teammates. Corey Perry, fresh off imploring the league to protect its stars, picks up and face-plants itty bitty Quinn Hughes into the ice. Elias Petterssen with a meek attempt to intervene. Of course, Perry won’t fight Blueger. But this, not for the first time, someone has taken a liberty with the diminutive captain. And the Canucks just don’t even show fire, passion and emotion in those moments on the ice… They’re not playing for each other. They’re not a united group.”
And Jeff Paterson on the Sekeres & Price show: “There wasn’t much of a response there. And Teddy Bluger, who just outside of penalty killing doesn’t do much for this hockey club, a glove punch. Big deal…. You need some sort of pushback. I think right now, the firestorm that is the Vancouver Canucks, that sort of stuff is a little lower on my list of concerns, but it just speaks to the general malaise around this group.”
My take
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