Carson Soucy’s check on Connor McDavid’s face was reckless. What will the NHL do?

So for most of Sunday night’s game between the Vancouver Canucks And Edmonton Oil Companiesthere were two parallel stories: one on the ice, one on social media.

On the ice: How Vancouver won the goaltending battle badly, rookie Arthur Silovswho is playing exceptionally well (and much better than his Oilers counterpart Stuart Skinner). Silovs stopped 41 of 44 shots. He was the absolute difference maker in a 4-3 win in Vancouver that gave the Canucks a 2-1 lead in the series. NHLWestern Conference semifinals.

On social media: How referee bias worked against the Oilers, who didn’t get their fair share of calls, from the referee tandem of Chris Rooney and Graham Skilliter.

But ultimately the nastiest play of the night came once the final whistle had blown; and Silovs had made one last stop to win the match in regulation.

Connor McDavid sat behind the net, in a joust Carson Soucy. Soucy checked McDavid and McDavid cut him back on the pants. It wasn’t much – or until Soucy’s defense partner, Nikita Zadorov joined the battle. While Zadorov controlled McDavid from behind, causing his knees to buckle, Soucy controlled him in the throat.

Carson Soucy catches McDavid with a cross-check after the final buzzer 😳 pic.twitter.com/Gf03SqgE0l

— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) May 13, 2024

That goal definitely crossed the line.

Yes, playoff hockey is intense. Yes, teams generally can’t leave well enough alone once the final whistle blows, because these are best-of-seven series, and once Game 3 is over, the posturing for Game 4 begins.

However, the Canucks will be lucky if they reach Game 4 with Soucy in the lineup.

A cross-check to the face like the one he delivered took the punishment to another level. Ultimately, Soucy was assessed a minor penalty at the buzzer, which is completely inconsequential if the NHL does not impose additional discipline.

NHL playoff hockey is, of course, a different animal than the regular season. Some players are just built for it – Zadorov is a good example. Zadorov — taken from the Calgary flames in a trade earlier this season – was added because of his size and willingness to play a physical game. At times his play was erratic in the regular season. But in the playoffs, and especially in this series against the Oilers, he was a powerful, intimidating force.

At one point in Sunday’s game, he completed a check-on Evander Kane, which landed Kane on the Edmonton team’s bench. Not content with simply driving Kane off the ice, Zadorov followed up with two more shoves to ensure he stayed there. That earned him a harsh punishment. Still, it ultimately cost the Canucks nothing, as the Oilers themselves were assessed a bench minor for retaliating from the bench.

The Canucks only acquired Zadorov for these playoff moments – he understands that in playoff hockey, someone has to play the role of the bad guy for Vancouver, because if no one does, the McDavids and Leon Draisaitls will eventually make you pay.

Zadorov can be crafty at it too. Presumably he understood that his blind cross-check after the game against McDavid was just enough to escape further NHL justice. So think strategically.

Soucy, on the other hand, was carried away by the latest reaction. You just can’t check someone down the throat at any time. The NHL’s player safety department has been eerily quiet so far in these playoffs, even as controversies rage from game to game and series to series.

The fact that it was McDavid who was on the receiving end of that double check adds even more fuel to the fire. Remember, less than three years ago, a popular narrative was that McDavid couldn’t get a break from the NHL referees — that he statistically took very few penalties, given his skill level, his ice time and his production.

The controversy came to a head in November 2021, at a time when McDavid was second in the league in scoring but only 57th in penalty taking. And this after he had played an entire play-off the year before without taking a penalty – actually unimaginable, given the way he plays.

When McDavid finally commented on that, he was called out by none other than John Tortorella, who was then between coaching jobs and working as a broadcaster for ESPN. Tortorella advised him to “honestly, just shut up. Stop talking about it.”

It almost seemed like because McDavid had an overdrive that mere mortals couldn’t match, he took more punishment than was warranted because he was so good.

Over time, the moment passed and the controversy faded.

Sometimes there is the impression that the NHL is doing its best not to protect elite players, as this could indicate favoritism. This is of course nonsense. Players want only one thing from the referees: as much consistency as possible, from team to team and from period to period and from match to match.

In other words, the same treatment for journeyman players as for the stars of the game. But consistency must also work both ways. You can’t ignore what happened here just because this was McDavid being abused. What Soucy did was reckless and dangerous. There should almost certainly be a suspension. If not, what is already a rowdy Oilers-Canucks series has a real chance of descending into real chaos.

(Photo: Paul Swanson/NHLI via Getty Images)