Oilers’ Perry trolls Canucks with pretend cross-check

Nobody was expecting the second-round series between the Vancouver Canucks and the Edmonton Oilers to be tame, but so far, it’s provided more content on and off the ice than anyone could have anticipated.

On Sunday night, the animosity between the two Pacific Division rivals ratcheted up to a 10 when Canucks defenceman Carson Soucy levelled an accidental, but dangerous, cross-check to the face of Oilers captain Connor McDavid and was slapped with a one-game suspension.

On Tuesday night with Soucy watching from the press box and the Canucks trailing the Oilers, Corey Perry decided to have some fun of his own.

As the two teams were engaged in a scrum after a whistle, Perry held his stick up at face level to Canucks forward Brock Boeser, in an apparent reference to the Soucy cross-check, to prevent him from getting in on the action.

Boeser did net one later on to even the score, but ultimately it was the Oilers who had the last laugh as Evan Bouchard scored the game-winner with just over 30 seconds remaining.

Through four games of this series, there has been no love lost between the two teams — or their fans. This series seems poised to go the distance as the Oilers tied the series 2-2, and hockey fans can rejoice knowing there is plenty more of this good, old-fashioned rivalry to come.