Sidney Crosby unfazed by Connor McDavid’s temper outburst vs. Canucks: ‘That’s hockey’

LOS ANGELES — Very few players in hockey history can relate with the kind of attention and on-ice abuse that Connor McDavid receives on a regular basis.

Sidney Crosby is one of them.

McDavid, after being held to the ice by Vancouver’s Conor Garland for a handful of seconds in the final moments of the Canucks’ 3-2 win on Saturday, lost his temper and cross-checked the Canucks forward in the face. It earned McDavid a three-game suspension, the NHL Department of Player Safety announced Monday.

“I saw the cross-check,” Crosby told The Athletic following the Penguins’ morning skate in Los Angeles on Monday, about three hours before the suspension was levied. “But I couldn’t tell if it was his glove or his stick that hit him in the face.”

Connor McDavid has been suspended for three games for cross-checking Conor Garland. pic.twitter.com/eDLhaCouCD

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Crosby said that, in his view, that makes a difference. In other words, if it was McDavid’s glove that struck Garland in the face, it wasn’t a huge deal. But if it was his stick, then it’s a different story.

“It’s hard to say how bad it was from the angle that was available,” Crosby said. “You’re splitting hairs.”

Crosby has been the victim of considerable abuse in his NHL career, notably being cross-checked in the head by the New York Rangers’ Marc Staal and the Columbus Blue Jackets’ Brandon Dubinsky. He is also more than familiar with what Garland did to McDavid.

Throughout hockey history, great players have to deal with such things and don’t always receive the benefit of the doubt from officials.

Crosby and McDavid have never been teammates at any level, but that will change next month when they will both represent Team Canada at the 4 Nations Face-Off in Montreal and Boston. Like he has done for more than a decade, Crosby will captain Team Canada. McDavid will enter the tournament universally viewed as the world’s greatest current player.

Crosby held that distinction for many years and possesses a unique understanding of McDavid’s plight. Crosby has dropped the gloves out of frustration 10 times in his career, most recently in November when he fought Winnipeg’s Kyle Connor. Crosby has never been disciplined by the NHL and has never been involved in an incident like this.

McDavid has never been assessed a fighting major, though he did drop the gloves twice while playing for the Erie Otters in the Ontario Hockey League.

“It’s like anything,” Crosby said. “Sometimes your emotions get the best of you. It’s a physical sport. The one time you see that, you probably didn’t see there nine hits that Connor took. Those ones are the ones that never make the highlights. When you retaliate, you make the highlights.”

Crosby knew there was a good chance that McDavid would get suspended. While the Penguins captain grimaced when talking about the idea of cross-checking someone in the face, he seemed relatively unfazed.

“Whether it’s him or anyone else, it’s an emotional game,” Crosby said. “That’s going to happen sometimes. If there were calmer or cooler circumstances, he probably wouldn’t have done that.”

The circumstances, of course, were not calm nor cool.

“That’s hockey,” Crosby said.

(Photo: Jeanine Leech / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)