The Vancouver Canucks have a 2-1 series lead over the Edmonton Oilers in the second round of this year’s playoffs.
They won 4-3 in Sunday’s Game 3, but now they’ll have to do without defenseman Carson Soucy for Game 4. After the final buzzer sounded, a skirmish began, which led to Oilers’ superstar Connor McDavid slashing Soucy on the leg.
Canucks blue liner Nikita Zadorov saw what happened and responded by cross-checking McDavid from behind.
At the same time, Soucy was preparing to cross-check McDavid in the chest, but as the Oilers captain was falling, Soucy’s stick hit him up high.
Soucy told reporters on Monday after practice, before the decision about his suspension game from the Department of Player Safety, that he wasn’t trying to injure McDavid.
“It’s just an unfortunate incident due to some timing. … Obviously there wasn’t intent to get a player up that high,” he said.
“Emotions run high in those scrums at the end of the game.”
Soucy also revealed exactly what he said to McDavid after the high cross check.
”If you can see after, it’s kind of almost apologizing and saying I didn’t mean to get that high,” Soucy explained. ”He obviously was fired up because, like I said, it looked bad and it probably felt bad. But ultimately, I was like ’Hey, there was no intent to get you up that high, just emotions run high in those scrums at the end of the game.’”
Connor McDavid said Monday that he was ’feeling great’ and didn’t want to spend too much time discussing the incident. He simply called it ’part of a heated series.’
“It’s a tough game. They’ve got big d-men. They make it hard on you. They play physical, they play a physical brand of hockey and it’s fun to be a part of,” said McDavid.
“It’s a fun series to be a part of. Obviously, two Canadian teams going at it, there’s a lot of passion.”
